
Book-^ 



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Kept for the Master's Use. 

THE VIRGIN AND CHRIST-CHILD. 



KEPT 
FOR THE MASTER'S USE 



BY 

Frances Ridlev Havergal 



•Thou shalt abide for Me." — Hosea iii. 3. 



PHILADELPHIA 
THE RODGERS COMPANY 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



My beloved sister Frances finished revising 
the proofs of this book shortly before her death 
on Whit Tuesday, June 3, 1879, but its publica- 
tion was to be deferred till the Autumn. 

In appreciation of the deep and general sym- 
pathy flowing in to her relatives, they wish that 
its publication should not be withheld. Know- 
ing her intense desire that Christ should be 
magnified, whether by her life or in her death, 
may it be to His glory that in these pages she, 

being dead, 

''Yet Speakethr' 

MARIA v. G. HAVERGAL. 

Oakhampton, Worcestershire, 
nth June^ ^Syg. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. Our Lives kept for Jesus 9 

11. Our Moments jcept for Jesus .... 33 

III. Our Hands kept for Jesus ..... 43 

IV. Our Feet kept for Jesus 60 

V. Our Voices kept for Jesus 67 

VI. Our Lips kept for Jesus 87 

VII. Our Silver and Gold kept for Jesus 105 

VIII. Our Intellects kept for Jesus ... 122 

IX. Our Wills kept for Jesus 129 

X. Our Hearts kept for Jesus 140 

XL Our Love kept for Jesus 146 

XII. Our Selves kept for Jesus 154 

XIII. Christ for us 164 



KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 



Take my life, and let it be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. 

Take my moments and my days. 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise. 

Take my hands, and let them move 
At the impulse of Thy love. 

Take my feet, and let them be 
Swift and "■ beautiful " for Thee. 

Take my voice, and let me sing 
Always, only, for my King. 

Take my lips, and let them be 
Filled with messages from Thee. 

Take my silver and my gold ; 
Not a mite would I withhold. 

Take my intellect, and use 

Every power as Thou shalt choose. 

Take my will and make it Thine ; 
It shall be no longer mine. 

Take my heart ; it is Thine own ; 
It shall be Thy royal throne. 

Take my love; my Lord, I pour 
At Thy feet its treasure- store. 

Take myself, and I will be 
Ever, on/y, ALL for Thee. 



M 



CHAPTER I. 

OUR LIVES KEPT FOR JESUS. 

" Keep my life that it may be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee ! '* 

ANY a heart has echoed the little song, 

^* Take my life, and let it be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee ! " 



And yet those echoes have not been, in every case 
and at all times, so clear, and full, and firm, so 
continuously glad as we would wish, and perhaps 
expected. Some of us have said : 

*^I launch me forth upon a sea 

Of boundless love and tenderness." 

and after a little we have found, or fancied, that 
there is a hidden leak in our barque, and though 
we are doubtless still afloat, yet we are not sail- 
ing with the same free, exultant confidence as at 
first. What is it that has dulled and weakened 
the echo of our consecration song ? What is the 
little leak that hinders the swift and buoyant 

9 



lO KEPl^ FOR run master's USE. 

course of our consecrated life ? Holy Father, 
let Thy loving Spirit guide the hand that writes, 
and strengthen the heart of every one who reads 
what shall be wTitten for Jesus' sake. 

While many a sorrowfully-varied answer to 
these questions may, and probably will, arise 
from touched and sensitive consciences, each 
being shown by God's faithful Spirit the special 
sin, the special yielding to temptation which has 
hindered and spoiled the blessed life which they 
sought to enter and enjoy, it seems to me that 
one or other of two things has lain at the outset 
of the failure and disappointment. 

First, it may have arisen from want of the 
simplest belief in the simplest fact, as well as 
want of trust in one of the simplest and plainest 
words our gracious Master ever uttered ! The 
unbelieved fact being simply that He hears us; 
the untrusted word being one of those plain, 
broad foundation-stones on which we rested our 
whole weight, it may be many years ago, and 
which we had no idea we ever doubted, or were 
in any danger of doubting now — ^^ Him that 
cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.'* 



OUR lylVES KEPT FOR JESUS. 11 

** Take my life ! '* We have said it or sung it 
before the Lord, it may be many times ; but if 
it were only once whispered in His ear with full 
purpose of heart, should we not believe that He 
heard it? And if we know that He heard it, 
should we not believe that He has answered it, 
and fulfilled this, our heart's desire? For with 
Him hearing means heeding. Then why should 
we doubt that He did verily take our lives when 
we offered them — our bodies when we presented 
them ? Have we not been wronging His faith- 
fulness all this time by practically, even if uncon- 
sciously, doubting whether the prayer ever really 
reached Him ? And if so, is it any wonder that 
we have not realized all the power and joy of full 
consecration ? By some means or other He has 
to teach us to trust implicitly at every step of the 
way. And so, if we did not really trust in this 
matter. He has had to let us find out our want of 
trust by withholding the sensible part of the 
blessing, and thus stirring us up to find out why 
it is withheld. 

An offered gift must be either accepted or 
refused. Can He have refused it when He has 
said, '^ Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise 



12 KKPT I^OR THEJ MASTER'S US^. 

cast out ? ' ' If not, then it must have been 
accepted. It is just the same process as when 
we came to Him first of all, with the intolerable 
burden of our sins. There was no help for it but 
to come with them to Him, and take His word 
for it that He would not and did not cast us out. 
And so coming, so believing, we found rest to 
our souls ; we found that His word was true, and 
that His taking away our sins was a reality. 

Some give their lives to Him then and there, 
and go forth to live thenceforth not at all unto 
themselves, but unto Him who died for them. 
This is as it should be, for conversion and con- 
secration ought to be simultaneous. But practi- 
cally it is not very often so, except with those in 
whom the bringing out of darkness into marvel- 
ous light has been sudden and dazzling, and full 
of deepest contrasts. More frequently the work 
resembles the case of the Hebrew servant described 
in Exodus xxi., who, after six years' experience of 
a good master's service, dedicates himself volunta- 
rily, unreservedly, and irrevocably to it, saying, 
^'I love my master; Iwill not go out free; " the 
master then accepting and sealing him to a 
life-long service, free in law, yet bound in love. 



OUR I<IVKS KEPT FOR JESUS. I3 

This seems to be a figure of later consecration 
founded on experience and love. 

And yet^ as at our first coming, it is less than 
nothing, worse than nothing that we have to 
bring; for our lives, even our redeemed and par- 
doned lives, are not only weak and worthless, 
but defiled and sinful. But thanks be to God for 
the Altar that sanctifieth the gift, even our Lord 
Jesus Christ Himself! By Him we draw nigh 
unto God; to Him, as one with the Father, we 
offer our living sacrifice; in Him, as the Beloved 
of the Father, we know it is accepted. So, dear 
friends, when once He has wrought in us the 
desire to be altogether His own, and put into our 
hearts the prayer, ^^Take my life," let us go on 
our way rejoicing, believing that He has taken 
our lives, our hands, our feet, our voices, our in- 
tellects, our wills, our whole selves, to be ever, 
only, all for Him. Let us consider that a bless- 
edly settled thing; not because of anything we 
have felt, or said, or done, but because we know 
that He heareth us, and because we know that 
He is true to His word. 

But suppose our hearts do not condemn us in 
this matter, our disappointment may arise from 



14 KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 

another cause. It may be that we have not re- 
ceived, because we have not asked a fuller and 
further blessing. Suppose that we did believe, 
thankfully and surely, that the Lord heard our 
prayer, and that He did indeed answer and accept 
us, and set us apart for Himself, and yet we find 
that our consecration was not merely miserably 
incomplete, but that we have drifted back again 
almost to where we were before. Or suppose 
things are not quite so bad as that, still we have 
not quite all we expected; and even if we think 
we can truly say, ^^ O God, my heart is fixed,** 
we find that, to our daily sorrow, somehow or 
other the details of our conduct do not seem to 
be fixed, something or other is perpetually slip- 
ping through, till we get perplexed and distressed. 
Then we are tempted to wonder whether, after 
all, there was not some mistake about it, and the 
Lord did not really take us at our word, although 
we took Him at His word. And then the strug- 
gle with one doubt, and entanglement, and temp- 
tation only seems to land us in another. What is 
to be done then ? 

First, I think, very humbly and utterly honestly, 
to search and try our ways before our God ; or 



OUR lylVEJS KEPT FOR JKSUS. 15 

rather, as we shall soon realize our helplessness to 
make such a search, ask Him to do it for us, 
praying for His promised Spirit to show us unmis- 
takably if there is any secret thing with us that is 
hindering both the inflow and outflow of His 
grace to us and through us. Do not let us shrink 
from some unexpected flash into a dark corner; 
do not let us wince at the sudden touching of a 
hidden plague-spot. The Lord always does His 
own work thoroughly, if we will only let Him do 
itj if we put our case into His hands, He will 
search and probe fully and firmly, though very 
tenderly. Very painfully, it may be, but only 
that He may do the very thing we want — cleanse 
us and heal us thoroughly, so that we may set off 
to walk in real newness of life. But if we do not 
put it unreservedly into His hands, it will be no 
use thinking or talking about our lives being con- 
secrated to Him. The heart that is not entrusted 
to Him for searching, will not be undertaken by 
Him for cleansing; the life that fears to come to 
the light lest any deed should be reproved, can 
never know the blessedness and the privileges of 
walking in the light. 

But what then? When He has graciously 



1 6 KEJPT FOR THK MASTER'S USEJ. 

again put a new song in our mouth, and we are 
singing, 

" Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, 
Who like me His praise should sing?" 

and again with fresh earnestness we are saying, 

" Take my life, and let it be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee ! " 

are we only to look forward to the same disap- 
pointing experience over again? are we always to 
stand at the threshold ? Consecration is not so 
much a step as a course ; not so much an act, as a 
position to which a course of action inseparably 
belongs. In so far as it is a course and a position, 
there must naturally be a definite entrance upon 
it, and a time, it may be a moment, when that 
entrance is made. That is when we say, ^ ' Take ; " 
but we do not want to go on taking a first step 
over and over again. What we want now is to 
be maintained in that position, and to fulfill that 
course. So let us go on to another prayer. Hav- 
ing already said, ^^Take my life, for I cannot 
give it to Thee,'^ let us now say, with deepened 
conviction, that without Christ we really can do 



OUR tlVES KEPT FOR JESUS. I7 

nothing-- Keep my life, for I cannot keep it for 
Thee/' 

Let us ask this with the same simple trust to 
which, in so many other things, He has so liberally 
and graciously responded. For this is the confi- 
dence that we have in Him, that if we ask any- 
thing according to His will. He heareth us; and 
If we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask 
we know that we have the petitions that we de- 
sired of Him. There can be no doubt that this 
petition IS according to His will, because it is 
based upon many a promise. May I give it to 
you just as it floats through my own mind again 
and again, knowing whom I have believed, and 
being persuaded that He is able to keep that 
Which I have committed unto Him? 

Keep my life, that it may be 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. 

Keep my moments and my days; 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise. 

Keep my hands that they may move 
At the impulse of Thy love. 

Keep my feet that they may be, 
Swift and " beautiful " for Thee. 



1 8 KEJPX I^OR THEJ MASTER'S USK. 

Keep my voice that I may sing 
Always, only, for my King. 

Keep my lips, that they may be 
Filled with messages from Thee 

Keep my silver and my gold ; 
Not a mite would I withhold. 

Keep my intellect, and use 
Every power as Thou shalt choose. 

Keep my will, oh, keep it Thine, 
For it is no longer mine. 

Keep my heart ; it is Thine own, 
It is now Thy royal throne. 

Keep my love ; my Lord, I pour 
At Thy feet its treasure-store. 

Keep myself, that I may be 
Ever, only, ALL for Thee. 

Yes ! He who is able and willing to take unto 
Himself, is no less able and willing to keep for 
Himself. Our willing offering has been made by 
His enabling grace, and this our King has ^^seen 
with joy." And now we pray, '^ Keep this for- 
ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the 
heart of Thy people'' (i Chron. xxix. 17, 18). 



OUR I,IVES KKPT F^OR JKSUS. I9 

This blessed ^^ taking '' once for all, which we 
may quietly believe as an accomplished fact, fol- 
lowed by the continual ^'keeping'' for which 
He will be continually inquired of by us, seems 
analogous to the great washing by which we have 
part in Christ, and the repeated washing of the 
feet for which we need to be continually coming 
to Him. For with the deepest and sweetest con- 
sciousness that he has, indeed, taken our lives to 
be his very own, the need of His active and actual 
keeping of them in every detail and at every 
moment is most fully realized. But then we have 
the promise of our faithful God, '^ I, the Lord, do 
keep it, I will keep it night and day. " The only 
question is, Will we trust this promise, or will we 
not? If we do, we shall find it come true. If 
not, of course it will not be realized. For un- 
claimed promises are like uncashed cheques; they 
will keep us from bankruptcy, but not from want. 
But if not, w/iy not ? What right have we to 
pick out one of His faithful sayings, and say we 
don't expect Him to fulfill that ? What defence 
can we bring, what excuse can we invent, for so 
doing ? 

If you appeal to experience against His faith- 



20 KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 

fulness to His word, I will appeal to experience 
too, and ask you, did you ever really trust Jesus 
to fulfill any word of His to you, and find your 
trust deceived ? As to the past experience of the 
details of your life not being kept for Jesus, look 
a little more closely at it, and you will find that 
though you may have asked, you did not trust. 
Whatever you really did trust Him to keep. He 
has kept, and the unkept things were never really 
entrusted. Scrutinize this past experience as you 
will, and it will only bear witness against your 
unfaithfulness, never against His absolute faith- 
fulness. 

Yet this witness must not be unheeded. We 
must not forget the things that are behind till 
they are confessed and forgiven. Let us now 
bring all this unsatisfactory past experience, 
and, most of all, the want of trust which has 
been the poison-spring of its course, to the pre- 
cious blood of Christ, which ckanseth us, even 
us, from all sin, even this sin. Perhaps we never 
saw that we were not trusting Jesus as He 
deserves to be trusted ; if so, let us wonderingly 
hate ourselves the more that we could be so trust- 
less to such a Saviour, and so sinfully dark 



OUR IvIVKS KKPT FOR JEJSUS. 21 

and stupid that we did not even see it. And 
oh, let us wonderingly love Him the more that 
He has been so patient and gentle with us, up- 
braiding not, though in our slow-hearted foolish- 
ness we have been grieving Him by this subtle 
unbelief ; and then by His grace may we enter 
upon a new era of experience, our lives kept 
for Him more fully than ever before, because we 
trust Him more simply and unreservedly to keep 
them! 

Here we must face a question^ and perhaps a 
difficulty. Does it not almost seem as if we were 
at this point led to trusting to our trust, making 
everything hinge upon it, and thereby only re- 
moving a subtle dependence upon ourselves one 
step farther back, disguising instead of renounc- 
ing it? If Christ's keeping depends upon our 
trusting, and our continuing to trust depends 
upon ourselves, we are in no better or safer posi- 
tion than before, and shall only be landed in a 
fresh series of disappointments. The old story, 
something for the sinner to do^ crops up again 
here, only with the ground shifted from ^* works'* 
to trust. Said a friend to me, *' I see now! I 
did trust Jesus to do everything else for me, but 



22 ke:pt for thk master's usk. 

I thought that this trusting was something that / 
had got to do/' And so, of course, what she 
* ^ had got to do " had been a perpetual effort 
and frequent failure. We can no more trust and 
keep on trusting than we can do anything else of 
ourselves. Even in this it must be ^^ Jesus only; *' 
we are not to look to Him only to be the Author 
and Finisher of our faith, but we are to look to 
Him for all the intermediate fulfillment of the 
work of faith (2 Thess. i. 11); we must ask Him 
to go on fulfilling it in us, committing even this 
to His power. 

For we both may and must 
Commit our very faith to Him, 
Entrust to Him our trust. 

What a long time it takes us to come down to 
the conviction, and still more to the realization 
of the fact that without Him we can do nothings 
but that He must work all our works in us ! This 
is the work of God, that ye believe in Him whom 
He has sent. And no less must it be the work of 
God that we go on believing, and that we go on 
trusting. Then, dear friends, who are longing 
to trust Him with unbroken and unwavering 



OUR I,IVKS KKPT I^OR JESUS. 23 

trust, cease the effort and drop the burden, and 
now entrust your trust to Him ! He is just as 
well able to keep that as any other part of the 
complex lives which we want Him to take and 
keep for Himself. And oh, do not pass on con- 
tent with the thought, ^* Yes, that is a good idea; 
perhaps I should find that a great help ! ' ' But, 
'* Now, then, do ity It is no help to the sailor 
to see a flash of light across a dark sea, if he does 
not instantly steer accordingly. 

Consecration is not a religiously selfish thing. 
If it sinks into that, it ceases to be consecration. 
We want our lives kept, not that we may feel 
happy, and be saved the distress consequent on 
wandering, and get the power with God and man, 
and all the other privileges linked with it. We 
shall have all this, because the lower is included 
in the higher ; but our true aim, if the love of 
Christ constraineth us, will be far beyond this. 
Not for ''me" at all, but ''for Jesus; " not for 
my safety, but for His glory ; not for my comfort, 
but for His joy; not that I may find rest, but 
that He may see the travail of His soul, and be 
satisfied ! Yes, ioi Him I want to be kept. Kept 



24 KKPT FOR TH^ MASTER'S USE^. 

for His sake ; kept for His use ; kept to be His 
witness; kept for His joy. Kept for Him, that 
in me He may show forth some tiny sparkle of 
His light and beauty; kept to do His will and 
His work in His own way; kept, it may be, 
to suffer for His sake ; kept for Him, that He 
may do just what seemeth Him good with me ; 
kept, so that no other lord shall have any more 
dominion over me, but that Jesus shall have all 
there is to have — little enough, indeed, but not 
divided or diminished by any other claim. Is 
not this, O you who love the Lord — is not this 
worth living for, worth asking for, worth trust- 
ing for ? 

This is consecration, and I cannot tell you the 
blessedness of it. It is not the least use arguing 
with one who has had but a taste of its blessed- 
ness, and saying to him, '^ How can these things 
be ? ' ' It is not the least use starting all sorts of 
difficulties and theoretical suppositions about it 
with such a one, any more than it was when the 
Jews argued with the man who said, ^' One thing 
I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.'* 
The Lord Jesus does take the life that is offered 
to Him, and He does keep the life for Himself 



OUR I^IVKS KKPl" FOR JKSUS. 25 

that is entrusted to Him ; but until the life is 
offered we can not know the taking, and until 
the life is entrusted we can not know or under- 
stand the keeping. All we can do is to say, '' O 
taste and see ! ' * and bear witness to the reality 
of Jesus Christ, and set to our seal that we have 
found Him true to His every word, and that we 
have proved Him able even to do exceeding 
abundantly above all we asked or thought. Why 
should we hesita!te to bear this testimony ? We 
have done nothing at all ; we have, in all our 
efforts, only proved to ourselves, and perhaps to 
others, that we had no power either to give or 
keep our lives. 

Why should we not, then, glorify His grace 
by acknowledging that we have found Him so 
wonderfully and tenderly gracious and faith- 
ful in both taking and keeping as we never 
supposed or imagined ? I shall never forget the 
smile and emphasis with which a poor working- 
man bore this witness to his Lord. I said to 
him, ^^Well, H., we have a good Master, have 
we not ? " ^^Ah," said he, '* a deal better than 
ever / thought ! " That summed up his experi- 
ence, and so it will sum up the experience of every 



26 KKPl" FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 

one who will but yield their lives wholly to the 
same good Master. 

I can not close this chapter without a word 
with those, especially my younger friends, who, 
although they have named the name of Christ, 
are saying, ^*Yes, this is all very well for some 
people, or for older people, but I am not ready 
for it; I can't say I see my way to this sort of 
thing." I am going to take the lowest ground 
for a minute, and appeal to your '^past experi- 
ence.'' Are you satisfied with your experience 
of the other ^^sort of thing?" Your pleasant 
pursuits, your harmless recreations, your nice 
occupations, even your improving ones, what 
fruit are you having from them? Your social 
intercourse, your daily talks and walks, your in- 
vestments of all the time that remains to you over 
and above the absolute duties God may have given 
you, what fruit that shall remain have you from 
all this ? Day after day passes on, and year after 
year, and what shall the harvest be? What -is 
even the present return ? Are you getting any real 
and lasting satisfaction out of it all ? Are you not 
finding that things lose their flavor, and that you 



OUR I,IVKS KKPT FOR JKSUS. 27 

are spending your strength day after day for 
nought ? that you are no more satisfied than 
you were a year ago — rather less so, if any- 
thing ? 

Does not a sense of hoUowness and weariness 
come over you as you go on in the same round, 
perpetually getting through things only to begin 
again ? It can not be otherwise. Over even the 
freshest and purest earthly fountains the Hand 
that never makes a mistake has written, " He 
that drinketh of this water shall thirst again.*' 
Look into your own heart and you will find a 
copy of that inscription already traced, "Shall 
thirst again.'' ^ And the characters are being 
deepened with every attempt to quench the inevi- 
table thirst and weariness in life, which can only 
be satisfied and rested in full consecration to God. 
For " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the 
heart never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee.** 
To day I tell you of a brighter and happier life, 
whose inscription is, '''Shall never thlrst,^^ a life 
that is no dull round-and-round in a circle of 
unsatisfactorinesses, but a life that has found its 
true and entirely satisfactory centre, and set itself 
towards a shining and entirely satisfactory goal, 



28 KEJPT I^OR the; MASTKR'S US^. 

whose brightness is cast over every step of the 
way. Will you not seek it ? 

Do not shrink, and suspect, and hang back 
from what it may involve, with selfish and uncon- 
fiding and ungenerous half-heartedness. Take 
the word of any who have willingly offered them- 
selves unto the Lord, that the life of consecration 
is ^^ a deal better than they thought ! " Choose 
this day whom you will serve with real, thorough- 
going, whole-hearted service, and He will receive 
you ; and you will find, as we have found, that 
He is such a good Master that you are satisfied 
with His goodness, and that you will never want 
to go out free. Nay, rather take His own word 
for it ; see what He says : ^^ If they obey and 
serve Him, they shall spend their days in pros- 
perity, and their years in pleasures." You can 
not possibly understand that till you are really in 
His service! For He does not give, nor even 
show. His wages before you enter it. And He 
says, '' My servants shall sing for joy of heart.'* 
But you cannot try over that song to see what it 
is like, you cannot even read one bar of it, till 
your nominal or even promised service is ex- 
changed for real and undivided consecration. 



OUR I.IVES KEPI" FOR JESUS. 29 

But when He can call you '^ My servant/' then 
you will find yourself singing for joy of heart, 
because He says you shall. 

^*And who, then, is walling to consecrate his 
service this day unto the Lord ? ' ' 

^' Do not startle at the term, or think, because 
you do not understand all it may include, you 
are therefore not qualified for it. I dare say it 
comprehends a great deal more than either you 
or I understand, but we can both enter into the 
spirit of it, and the detail will unfold itself as long 
as our probation shall last. Christ demands a 
hearty consecration in will, and He will teach us 
what that involves in act,^^ 

This explains the paradox that ^' full consecra- 
tion ' ' may be in one sense the act of a moment, 
and in another the work of a lifetime. It must be 
complete to be real, and yet, if real, it is always 
incomplete; a point of rest, and yet a perpetual 
progression. 

Suppose you make over a piece of ground to 
another person. You give it up, then and there, 
entirely to that other; it is no longer in your own 
possession; you no longer dig and sow, plant and 
reap, at your discretion or for your own profit. 



30 ke:pt for the master's use. 

His occupation of it is total ; no other has any 
right to an inch of it ; it is his affair thenceforth 
what crops to arrange for and how to make the 
most of it. But his practical occupation of it may 
not appear all at once. There may be waste land 
which he will take into full cultivation only by 
degrees, space wasted for want of draining or by 
over-fencing, and odd corners lost for want of 
enclosing; fields yielding smaller returns than 
they might, because of hedgerows too wide and 
shady, and trees too many and spreading, and 
strips of good soil trampled into uselessness for 
want of defined pathways. 

Just so is it with our lives. The transaction of, 
so to speak, making them over to God is definite 
and complete. But then begins the practical de- 
velopment of consecration. And here He leads 
on ^^ softly, according as the children be able to 
endure. ' ' I do not suppose any one sees anything 
like all that it involves at the outset. We have 
not a notion what an amount of waste of power 
there has been in our lives; we never measured 
out the odd corners and the undrained bits, and 
it never occurred to us what good fruit might be 
grown in our straggling hedgerows, nor how the 



OUR 1,1 VKS KKPT FOR JESUS. 3 1 

shade of our trees has been keeping the sun from 
the scanty crops. And so, season by season, we 
shall be sometimes not a little startled, yet always 
very glad, as we find that bit by bit the Master 
shows how much more may be made of our ground, 
how much more He is able to make of it than we 
did ] and we shall be willing to work under Him 
and do exactly what He points out, even if it 
comes to cutting down a shady tree or clearing 
out a ditch full of pretty weeds and wild-flowers. 
As the seasons pass on, it will seem as if there 
was always more and more to be done; the very 
fact that He is constantly showing us something 
more to be done in it, proving that it is really 
His ground. Only let Him have the ground, no 
matter how poor or overgrown the soil may be, 
and then *^He will make her wilderness like 
Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord." 
Yes, even our ^Mesert!** And then we shall 
sing, "My beloved is gone down into His garden, 
to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and 
to gather lilies." 

Made for Thyself, O God ! 
Made for Thy love, Thy service, Thy delight; 
Made to show forth Thy wisdom, grace, and might; 



32 KKPT I^OR THE MASTER'S USE. 

Made for Thy praise, whom veiled archangels laud 
Oh, strange and glorious thought, that we may be 
A joy to Thee ! 

Yet the heart turns away 
From this grand destiny of bliss, and deems 
'Twas made for its poor self, for passing dreams, 
Chasing illusions melting day by day. 
Till for ourselves we read on this world's best, 

" This is not rest ! " 



OUR MOMENTS KKPT P'OR JESUS. 33 

CHAPTER 11. 

OUR MOMENTS KEPT FOR JESUS. 

** Keep my moments and my days; 
Let them flow in ceaseless praise." 

IT may be a little help to writer and reader if 
we consider some of the practical details of the 
life which we desire to have " kept for Jesus*' 
in the order of the little hymn at the beginning 
of this book, with the one word '^ take " changed 
to '^keep/* So we will take a couplet for each 
chapter. 

The first point that naturally comes up is that 
which is almost synonymous with life — our time. 
And this brings us at once face to face with one 
of our past difficulties, and its probable cause. 

When we take a wide sweep, we are so apt to 
be vague. When we are aiming at generalities 
we do not hit the practicalities. We forget that 
faithfulness to principle is only proved by faith- 
fulness in detail. Has not this vagueness had 
something to do with the constant ineffectiveness 
3 



34 KEPT EOR THE master's USE. 

of our feeble desire that our time should be de- 
voted to God ? 

In things spiritual, the greater does not always 
include the less, but, paradoxically, the less more 
often includes the greater. So in this case, time 
is entrusted to us to be traded with for our Lord. 
But we cannot grasp it as a whole. We instinc- 
tively break it up ere we can deal with it for any 
purpose. So when a New Year comes round, we 
commit it with special earnestness to the Lord. 
But as we do so, are we not conscious of a feel- 
ing that even a year is too much for us to deal 
with? And does not this feeling, that we are 
dealing with a larger thing than we can grasp, 
take away from the sense of reality ? Thus we are 
brought to a more manageable measure ; and as 
the Sunday mornings or the Monday mornings 
come round, we thankfully commit the opening 
week to Him, and the sense of help and rest is 
renewed and strengthened. But not even the six 
or seven days are close enough to our hand, even 
to-morrow exceeds our tiny grasp, and even to- 
morrow's grace is therefore not given to us. So 
we find the need of considering our lives as a 
matter of day by day, and that any more general 



OUR MOMENTS KEPT FOR JKSUS. 35 

committal and consecration of our time does not 
meet the case so truly. Here we have found 
much comfort and help, and if results have not 
been entirely satisfactory, they have, at least, 
been more so than before we reached this point 
of subdivision. 

But if we have found help and blessing by 
going a certain distance in one direction, is it 
not probable we shall find more if we go farther 
in the same? And so, if we may commit the 
days to our Lord, why not the hours, and why 
not the moments? And may we not expect a 
fresh and special blessing in so doing? 

We do not realize the importance of m.oments. 
Only let us consider those two sayings of God 
about them, *' In a moment shall they die," and, 
'^ We shall all be changed in a moment," and we 
shall think less lightly of them. Eternal issues 
may hang upon any one of them, but it has come 
and gone before we can even think about it. 
Nothing seems less within the possibility of our 
own keeping, yet nothing is most inclusive of all 
other keeping. Therefore let us ask Him to 
keep them for us. 

Are they not the tiny joints in the harness 



36 KEPT FOR the: MASTEJR'S USE. 

through which the darts of temptation pierce us ? 
Only give us time, we think, and we should not 
be overcome. Only give us time, and we could 
pray and resist, and the devil would flee from us ! 
But he comes all in a moment ; and in a moment 
— an unguarded, unkept one — we utter the hasty 
or exaggerated word, or think the un-Christ-like 
thought, or feel the un-Christ-like impatience or 
resentment. 

But even if we have gone so far as to say, 
^^Take my moments,^' have we gone the step 
farther, and really let Him take them — really en- 
trusted them to Him ? It is no good saying 
''take,'' when we do not let go. How can 
another keep that which we are keeping hold of? 
So let us, with full trust in His power, first com- 
mit these slippery moments to Him, — put them 
right into His hand, — and then we may trustfully 
and happily say, '' Lord, keep them for me ! 
Keep every one of the quick series as it arises. 
I cannot keep them for Thee ; do Thou keep 
them for Thyself! " 

But the sanctified and Christ-loving heart can 
not be satisfied with only negative keeping. We 
do not want only to be kept from displeasing 



OUR MOMENTS KEPT EOR JESUS. 37 

Him, but to be kept always pleasing Him. Every 
*'kept yr^;;/," should have its corresponding and 
still more blessed ^^kept/^r." We do not want 
our moments to be simply kept from Satan's use, 
but kept for His use ; we want them to be not 
only kept from sin, but kept for His praise. 

Do you ask, '' But what use can He make of 
mere moments ? ' ^ I will not stay to prove or 
illustrate the obvious truth that, as are the mo- 
ments so will be the hours and the days which 
they build. You understand that well enough. 
I will answer your question as it stands. 

Look back through the history of the Church 
in all ages, and mark how often a great work and 
mighty influence grew out of a mere moment in 
the life of one of God's servants ; a mere moment, 
but overshadowed and filled with the fruitful 
power of the Spirit of God. The moment may 
have been spent in uttering five words, but they 
have fed five thousand, or even fyve. hundred 
thousand. Or it may have been lit by the flash 
of a thought that has shone into hearts and homes 
throughout the land, and kindled torches that 
have been borne into earth's darkest corners. 
The rapid speaker or the lonely thinker little 



38 ke:pt for thk master's usk. 

guessed what use his Lord was making of that 
single moment. There was no room in it for even 
a thought of that. If that moment had not been, 
though perhaps unconsciously, ' ' kept for Jesus, ' ' 
but had been otherwise occupied, what a harvest 
to His praise would have been missed ! 

The same thing is going on every day. It is 
generally a moment — either an opening or a cul- 
minating one — that really does the work. It is 
not so often a whole sermon as a single short sen- 
tence in it, that wings God's arrow to a heart. 
It is seldom a whole conversation that is the 
means of bringing about the desired result, but 
some sudden turn of thought or word which 
comes with the electric touch of God's power. 
Sometimes it is less than that ; only a look (and 
what is more momentary ?) has been used by Him 
for the pulling down of strongholds. Again, in 
our own quiet waiting upon God, as moment after 
moment glides past in the silence at His feet, the 
eye resting upon a page of His Word, or only 
looking up to Him through the darkness, have we 
not found that He can so irradiate one passing 
moment with His light that its rays never die 
away, but shine on and on through days and 



OUR MOMEJNTS KE^PT FOR JEJSUS. 39 

years? Are not such moments proved to have 
been kept for Him ? And if some, why not all ? 

This view of moments seems to make it clearer 
that is impossible to serve two masters, for it is 
evident that the service of a moment cannot be 
divided. If it is occupied in the service of self, 
or any other master, it is not at the Lord's dis- 
posal ; He cannot make use of what is already 
occupied. 

Oh, how much we have missed by not placing 
them at His disposal ! What might He not have 
done with the moments freighted with self or 
loaded with emptiness, which we have carelessly 
let drift by ! Oh, what might have been if they 
had all been kept for Jesus ! How He might 
have filled them with His light and life, enrich- 
ing our own lives that have been impoverished by 
the waste, and using them in far-spreading bless- 
ing and power ! 

While we have been undervaluing these frac- 
tions of eternity, what has our gracious God been 
doing in them ? How strangely touching are the 
words, ^' What is man, that Thou shouldest set 
Thine heart upon him, and that Thou shouldest 
visit him every morning, and try him every 



40 KKPT FOR the; master's USE. 

moment ?^^ Terribly solemn and awful would 
be the thought that He has been trying us every 
moment, were it not for the yearning gentleness 
and love of the Father revealed in that wonderful 
expression of wonder, *^ What is man, that Thou 
shouldest set Thine heart upon him ? ' ^ Think 
of that ceaseless setting of His heart upon us, 
careless and forgetful children as we have been ! 
And then think of those other words, none the 
less literally true because given under a figure : "I, 
the Lord, do keep it ; I will water it every moment ^ 
We see something of God's infinite greatness 
and wisdom when we try to fix our dazzled gaze 
on infinite space. But when we turn to the mar- 
vels of the microscope, we gain a clearer view 
and more definite grasp of these attributes by 
gazing on the perfection of His infinitesimal 
handiworks* Just so, while we cannot realize 
the infinite love which fills eternity, and the infi- 
nite vistas of the great future are '^dark with 
excess of light'* even to the strongest telescopes 
of faith, we see that love magnified in the micro- 
scope of the moments, brought very close to us, 
and revealing its unspeakable perfection of detail 
to our wondering sight. 



OUR MOMENl^S KKPT FOR JESUS. 4I 

But we do not see this as long as the moments 
are kept in our own hands. We are like little 
children closing our fingers over diamonds. 
How can they receive and reflect the rays of 
light, analyzing them into all the splendor of 
their prismatic beauty, while they are kept shut 
up tight in the dirty little hands? Give them 
up ; let our Father hold them for us, and throw 
His own great light upon them, and then we 
shall see them full of fair colors of His manifold 
loving-kindnesses ; and let Him always keep them 
for us^ and then we shall always see His light and 
His love reflected in them. 

And then surely they shall be filled with praise. 
Not that we are to be always singing hymns, and 
using the expressions of other people's praise, any 
more than the saints in glory are always literally 
singing a new song. But praise will be the tone, 
the color, the atmosphere in which they flow ; 
none of them away from it or out of it. 

Is it a little too much for them all to '' flow in 
ceaseless praise?'* Well, were will you stop? 
What proportion of your moments do you think 
enough for Jesus ? How many for the spirit of 
praise, and how many for the spirit of heavi- 



42 KKPT i^oR the; master's usk. 

ness ? Be explicit about it, and come to an 
understanding. If He is not to have all, then 
how much ? Calculate, balance, and apportion. 
You will not be able to do this in heaven — you 
know it will be all praise there ; but you are free 
to halve your service of praise here, or to make 
the proportion what you will. 

Yet, — He made you for His glory. 

Yet, — He chose you that you should be to the 
praise of His glory. 

Yet, — He loves you every moment, waters you 
every moment, watches you unslumberingly, cares 
for you unceasingly. 

Yet, — He died for you ! 

Dear friends, one can hardly write it without 
tears. Shall you or I remember all this love and 
hesitate to give all our moments up to Him ? 
Let us entrust Him with them, and ask Him to 
keep them all, every single one, for His own 
beloved self, and fill them all with His praise, 
and let them all be to His praise ! 



OUR HANDS KE:pT FOR JEiSUS. 43 

CHAPTER III. 

OUR HANDS KEPT FOR JESUS. 

** Keep my hands, that they may move 
At the impulse of Thy love." 

WHEN the Lord has said to us, '^ Is thine 
heart right, as My heart is with thy 
heart?** the next word seems to be, 
''If it be, give Me thine hand.'* 

What a call to confidence, and love, and free, 
loyal, happy service is this ! and how different 
will the result of its acceptance be from the old 
lamentation: '*We labor and have no rest; we 
have given the hand to the Egyptians and to the 
Assyrians.** In the service of these ''other 
lords,** under whatever shape they have presented 
themselves, we shall have known something of 
the meaning of having " both the hands full with 
travail and vexation of spirit.'* How many a 
thing have we " taken in hand,** as we say, which 
we expected to find an agreeable task, an interest 
in life, a something towards filling up that uncon- 



44 ke:pt for thk maste^r's usk. 

fessed ^^aching void " which is often most real 
when least acknowledged ; and after a while we 
have found it change under our hands into irk- 
some travail/ involving perpetual vexation of 
spirit 1 The thing may have been of the earth 
and for the world, and then no wonder it failed 
to satisfy even the instinct of work, which comes 
natural to many of us. Or it may have been 
right enough in itself, something for the good of 
others so far as we understood their good, and 
unselfish in all but unravelled motive, and yet we 
found it full of tangled vexations, because the 
hands that held it were not simply consecrated to 
God. Well, if so, let us bring these soiled and 
tangle-making hands to the Lord, '^Let us lift 
up our heart with our hands" to Him, asking 
Him to clear and cleanse them. 

If He says, ''What is that in thine hand?" let 
us examine honestly whether it is something which 
He can use for His glory or not. If not, do not let 
us hesitate an instant about dropping it. It may 
be something we do not like to part with ; but 
the Lord is able to give thee much more than 
this, and the first glimpse of the excellency of 
the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord will 



OUR HANDS KEPT FOR JESUS. 45 

enable us to count those things loss which were 
gain to us. 

But if it is something which He can use, He 
will make us do ever so much more with it than 
before, Moses little thought what the Lord was 
going to make him do with that *^rod in his 
hand ! '' The first thing he had to do with it 
was to '' cast it on the ground," and see it pass 
through a startling change. After this he was 
commanded to take it up again, hard and terri- 
fying as it was to do so. But when it became again 
a rod in his hand, it was no longer what it was 
before, the simple rod of a wandering desert 
shepherd. Henceforth it was ^' the rod of God 
in his hand" (Ex. iv. 20), wherewith he should 
do signs, and by which God Himself would do 
*^ marvellous things" (Ps. Ixxviii. 12). 

If we look at any Old Testament text about 
consecration, we shall see that the marginal read- 
ing of the word is, ^'fill the hand'' (f- g», Ex. 
xxviii. 41; I Chron. xxix. 5). Now, if our hands 
are full of '' other things," they cannot be filled 
with '' the things that are Jesus Christ's;' there 
must be emptying before there can be any true 



46 KEPT FOR THK MAS'TKR'S USE). 

filling. So if we are sorrowfiilly seeing that our 
hands have not been kept for Jesus, let us humbly 
begin at the beginning, and ask Him to empty 
them thoroughly, that He may fill them com- 
pletely. 

For they must be emptied. Either we come 
to our Lord willingly about it, letting Him un- 
clasp their hold, and gladly dropping the glitter- 
ing weights they have been carrying, or, in very 
love. He will have to force them open, and 
wrench from the reluctant grasp the ^^ earthly 
things^' which are so occupying them that He 
cannot have His rightful use of them. There is 
only one other alternative, a terrible one, — to be 
let alone till the day comes when not a gentle 
Master, but the relentless king of terrors shall 
empty the trembling hands as our feet follow him 
out of the busy world into the dark valley, for 
''' it is certain we can carry nothing out.'' 

Yet the emptying and the filling are not all 
that has to be considered. Before the hands of 
the priests could be filled with the emblems of 
consecration, they had to be laid upon the em- 
blem of atonement (Lev. viii. 14, etc.). That 



OUR HANDS KEPT FOR JKSUS. 47 

came first. ^^ Aaron and his sons laid their 
hands upon the head of the bullock for the sin- 
offering." So the transference of guilt to our 
Substitute, typified by that act, must precede the 
dedication of ourselves to God. 

" My faith would lay her hand 
On that dear head of Thine, 
While like a penitent I stand, 
And there confess my sin." 

The blood of that Holy Substitute was shed 
^'to make reconciliation upon the altar." With- 
out that reconciliation we cannot offer and pre- 
sent ourselves to God ; but this being made, 
Christ Himself presents us. And you, that were 
sometim.e alienated, and enemies in your mind 
by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in 
the body of His flesh through death, to present 
you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in 
His sight. 

Then Moses '' brought the ram for the burnt- 
offering; and Aaron and his sons laid their 
hands upon the head of the ram, and Moses 
burnt the whole ram upon the altar; it was a 
burnt-offering for a sweet savor, and an offering 



48 KEPT FOR THE^ MASTE^R'S USE. 

made by fire unto the Lord/* Thus Christ's 
offering was, indeed, a whole one, body, soul 
and spirit, each and all suffering even unto 
death. These atoning sufferings, accepted by 
God for us, are, by our own free act, accepted 
by us as the ground of our acceptance. 

Then, reconciled and accepted, we are ready 
for consecration ; for then '^ he brought the other 
ram, the ram of consecration : and Aaron and 
his sons laid their hands upon the head of the 
ram." Here we see Christ, '' who is consecrated 
forevermore." We enter by faith into union 
with Him who said, ^^ For their sakes I sanctify 
Myself, that they also might be sanctified 
through the truth.'* 

After all this their hands were filled with 
^'consecrations for a sweet savor," so, after lay- 
ing the hand of our faith upon Christ, suffering 
and dying for us, we are to lay that very same 
hand of faith, and in the very same way upon 
Him as consecrated for us, to be the source and 
life and power of our consecration. And then 
our hands shall be filled with '^ consecrations," 
filled with Christ, and filled with all that is a 
sweet savor to God in Him. 




Kept for the Master's Use. 

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. 



OUR HANDS KKPT FOR JKSUS. 49 

^^And who then is willing to fill his hand this 
day unto the Lord ? ' ' Do you want an added 
motive? Listen again : ^^ Fill your hands to-day 
to the Lord, that He may bestow upon you a 
blessing this day. * ' Not a long time hence, not 
even to-morrow, but ^^this day/' Do you not 
want a blessing? Is not your answer to your 
Father's ''What wilt thou?" the same as Ach- 
sah's, ''Give me a blessing!" Here is His 
promise of just what you so want ; will you not 
gladly fulfill His condition? A blessing shall 
immediately follow. He does not specify what it 
shall be ; He waits to reveal it. You will find it 
such a blessing as you had not supposed could be 
for you — a blessing that shall verily make you 
rich, with no sorrow added — a blessing this day. 

All that has been said about consecration ap- 
plies to our literal members. Stay a minute, and 
look at your hand, the hand that holds this little 
book as you read it. See how wonderfully it is 
made; how perfectly fitted for what it has to do; 
how ingeniously connected with the brain, so as 
to yield that instantaneous and instinctive obedi- 
ence without which its beautiful mechanism would 
be very little good to us ! Your hand, do you 
4 



50 , KKPT i^OR 'The: master's us^. 

say? Whether it is soft and fair with an easy 
life, or rough and strong with a working one, or 
white and weak with illness, it is the Lord Jesus 
Christ's. It is not your own at all; it belongs to 
Him. He made it, for without Him was not 
anything made that was made, not even your 
hand. And He has the added right of purchase 
— He has bought it that it might be one of His 
own instruments. We know this very well, but 
have we realized it ? Have we really let Him 
have the use of these hands of ours ? and have we 
ever simply and sincerely asked Him to keep 
them for His own use ? 

Does this mean that we are always to be doing 
some definitely ^^ religious'' work, as it is called? 
No, but that all that we do is to be always defi- 
nitely AonQforHim, There is a great difference. 
If the hands are indeed moving *^ at the impulse 
of His love," the simplest little duties and acts 
are transfigured into holy service to the Lord. 

** A servant with this clause 
Makes drudgery divine; 
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, 
Makes that and the action fine." 

George Herbert. 



OUR HANDS KKPT FOR JESUS. 51 

A Christian school-girl loves Jesus j she wants 
to please Him all day long, and so she practices 
her scales carefully and conscientiously. It is at 
the impulse of His love that her fingers move so 
steadily through the otherwise tiresome exercises. 
Some day her Master will find a use for her music; 
but meanwhile it may be just as really done unto 
Him as if it were Mr. Sankey at his organ, sway- 
ing the hearts of thousands. The hand of a Chris- 
tian lad traces his Latin verses, or his figures or his 
copying. He is doing his best, because a banner 
has been given him that it may be displayed, not 
so much by talk as by continuance in welL doing. 
And so, for Jesus' sake, his hand moves accurately 
and perseveringly. 

A busy wife, or daughter, or servant has a 
number of little manual duties to perform. If 
these are done slowly and leisurely, they may be 
got through j but there will not be time left for 
some little service to the poor, or some little 
kindness to a suffering or troubled neighbor, or 
for a little quiet time alone with God and His 
word. And so the hands move quickly, impelled 
by the loving desire for service or communion, 
kept in busy motion for Jesus' sake. Or it may 



52 KKPT If OR the; maste^r's us^. 

be that the special aim is to give no occasion of 
reproach to some who are watching, but so to 
adorn the doctrine that those may be won by the 
hfe who will not be won by the word. Then the 
hands will have their share to do ; they will move 
carefully, neatly, perhaps even elegantly, making 
everything around as nice as possible, letting their 
intelligent touch be seen in the details of the 
home, and even of the dress, doing or arranging 
all the little things decently and in order for Jesus' 
sake. And so on with every duty in every position. 
It may seem an odd idea, but a simple glance 
at one's hand, with the recollection, ^^This hand 
is not mine ; it has been given to Jesus, and it 
must be kept for Jesus," may sometimes turn the 
scale in a doubtful matter, and be a safeguard from 
certain temptations. With that thought fresh in 
your mind as you look at your hand, can you let 
it take up things which, to say the very least, are 
not ^' for Jesus? " things which evidently cannot 
be used, as they most certainly are not used, either 
for Him or by Him ? Cards, for instance ! Can 
you deliberately hold in it books of a kind which 
you know perfectly well, by sadly repeated experi- 
ence, lead you farther from instead of nearer to 



OUR HANDS KEPT FOR JE:SUS. 53 

Him ? books which must and do fill your mind 
with those '* other things" which, entering in, 
choke the word? books which you would not 
care to read at all, if your heart were burning 
within you at the coming of His feet to bless you? 
Next time any temptation of this sort approaches, 
just look at your hand ! 

It was of a literal hand that our Lord Jesus 
spoke when He said, ^^ Behold, the hand of him 
that betrayeth Me is with Me on the table ; ' ' 
and, '' He that dippeth his hand with Me in the 
dish, the same shall betray Me." A hand so 
near to Jesus^ with Him on the table, touching 
His own hand in the dish at that hour of sweet- 
est, and closest, and most solemn intercourse, and 
yet betraying Him ! That same hand taking the 
thirty pieces of silver ! What a tremendous les- 
son of the need of keeping for our hands ! Oh 
that every hand that is with Him at His sacra- 
mental table, and that takes the memorial bread, 
may be kept from any faithless and loveless 
motion ! And again, it was by literal ^' wicked 
hands ' ' that our Lord Jesus was crucified and 
slain. Does not the thought that human hands 
have been so treacherous and cruel to our beloved 



54 KEjpT ^OR the; maste^r's use. 

Lord, make us wish the more fervently that our 
hands may be totally faithful and devoted to 
Him? 

Danger and temptation to let the hands move 
at other impulses is every bit as great to those 
who have nothing else to do but to render direct 
service, and who think they are doing nothing 
else. Take one practical instance — our letter- 
writing. Have we not been tempted (and fallen 
before the temptation), according to our various 
dispositions, to let the hand that holds the pen 
move at the impulse to write an unkind thought 
of another ; or to say a clever and sarcastic thing, 
or a slightly colored and exaggerated thing, which 
will make our point more telling ; or to let out 
a grumble or a suspicion ; or to let the pen run 
away with us into flippant and trifling words, 
unworthy of our high and holy calHng? Have we 
not drifted away from the golden reminder, 
^'Should he reason with unprofitable talk, and 
with speeches wherewith he can do no good? ** 
Why has this been, perhaps again and again? Is 
it not for want of putting our hands into our 
dear Master's hand, and asking and trusting Him 



OUR HANDS KE:pT FOR JKSUS. 55 

to keep them ? He could have kept ; He would 
have kept ! 

Whatever our work or our special temptations 
may be, the principle remains the same, only let 
us apply it for ourselves. 

Perhaps one hardly needs to say that the kept 
hands will be very gentle hands. Quick, angry 
motions of the heart will sometimes force them- 
selves into expression by the hand, though the 
tongue may be restrained. The very way in 
which we close a door or lay down a book may be 
a victory or a defeat, a witness to Christ^ s keep- 
ing or a witness that we are not truly being kept. 
How can we expect that God will use this member 
as an instrument of righteousness unto Him, if 
we yield it thus as an instrument of unright- 
eousness unto sin? Therefore let us see to it, that 
it is at once yielded to Him whose right it is ; 
and let our sorrow that it should have been even 
for an instant desecrated to Satan's use, lead us to 
entrust it henceforth to our Lord, to be kept by 
the power of God through faith ^^for the Master's 
use.'' 

For when the gentleness of Christ dwells in 
us. He can use the merest touch of a finger. 



56 KKPT FOR TH]B: master's USE. 

Have you not heard of one gentle touch on a 
wayward shoulder being the turning-point of a 
life? I have known a case in which the Master 
made use of less than that— only the quiver of a 
little finger being made the means of touching a 
wayward heart. 

What must the touch of the Master's own hand 
have been ! One imagines it very gentle, though 
so full of power. Can He not communicate both 
the power and the gentleness? When He touched 
the hand of Peter's wife's mother, she arose and 
ministered unto them. Do you not think the 
hand which Jesus had just touched must have 
ministered very excellently? As we ask Him to 
^^ touch our lips with living fire,'' so that they 
may speak effectively for Him, may we not ask 
Him to touch our hands, that they may minister 
effectively, and excel in all that they find to do 
for Him ? Then our hands shall be made strong 
by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob. 

It is very pleasant to feel that if our hands are 
indeed our Lord's, we may ask Him to guide 
them and strengthen them, and teach them. I 
do not mean figuratively, but quite literally. In 



OUR HANDS KE:pT FOR JE;SUS. 57 

everything they do for Him (and that should be 
everything we ever undertake^, we want to do it 
well — better and better. ^^Seek that ye may 
excel.'* We are too apt to think that He has 
given us certain natural gifts, but has nothing 
practically to do with the improvement of them, 
and leaves us to ourselves for that. Why not ask 
Him to make these hands of ours more handy for 
His service, more skillful in what is indicated as 
the ^^ next thynge " they are to do ? The '^ kept'' 
hands need not be clumsy hands. If the Lord 
taught David's hands to war and his fingers to 
fight, will He not teach our hands, and fingers 
too, to do what He would have them do? 

The Spirit of God must have taught Bezaleel's 
hands as well as his head, or he was filled with it 
not only that he might devise cunning works, but 
also in cutting of stones and carving of timber. 
And when all the women that were wise-hearted 
did spin with their hands, the hands must have 
been made skillful as well as the hearts made wise 
to prepare the beautiful garments and curtains. 

There is a very remarkable instance of the 
hand of the Lord, which I suppose signifies in 
that case the power of His Spirit, being upon the 



58 KE^PT FOR O^H^ MASTEJR^S USE. 

hand of a man. In i Chron. xxix. 19, we read : 
^^ All this/' said David, ^^the Lord made me un- 
derstand in writing by His hand upon me, even 
all the works of this pattern.'* This can not well 
mean that the Lord gave David a miraculously- 
WTitten scroll, because a few verses before, it says 
that he had it all by the Spirit. So what else 
can it mean but that as David wrote, the hand of 
the Lord was upon his hand, impelling him to 
trace, letter by letter, the right words of descrip- 
tion for all the details of the temple that Solomon 
should build, with its courts and chambers, its 
treasuries and vessels ? Have we not sometimes 
sat down to write, feeling perplexed and ignorant, 
and wishing some one were there to tell us what 
to say ? At such a moment, whether it were a 
mere note for post, or a sheet for press, it is a 
great comfort to recollect this mighty laying of 
a Divine hand upon a human one, and ask for 
the same help from the same Lord. It is sure to 
be given ! 

And now, dear friend, what about your own 
hands? Are they consecrated to the Lord who 
loves you? And if they are, are you trusting 



OUR HANDS KKPT FOR JKSUS. 59 

Him to keep them, and enjoying all that is in- 
volved in that keeping? Do let this be settled 
with your Master before you go on to the next 
chapter. 

After all, this question will hinge on another : 
Do you love Him ? If you really do, there can 
surely be neither hesitation about yielding them 
to Him, nor about entrusting them to Him to be 
kept. Does He love yoic ? That is the truer 
way of putting it ; for it is not our love to Christ, 
but the love of Christ to us which constraineth 
us. And this is the impulse of the motion and 
the mode of the keeping. The steam engine 
does not move when the fire is not kindled, nor 
when it is gone out ; no matter how complete 
the machinery and abundant the fuel, cold coals 
will neither set it going nor keep it working. 
Let us ask Him so to shed abroad his love in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us, 
that it may be the perpetual and only impulse of 
every action of our daily life. 



6o KEPT I^OR THE MASTER'S USE. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OUR FEET KEPT FOR JESUS. 

'' Keep my feet, that they may be 
Swift and beautiful for Thee." 

THE figurative keeping of the feet of His 
saints, with the promise that when they 
run they shall not stumble, is a most beau- 
tiful and helpful subject. But it is quite distinct 
from the literal keeping for Jesus of our literal 
feet. 

There is a certain homeliness about the idea 
which helps to make it very real. These very feet 
of ours are purchased for Christ's service by the 
precious drops which fell from His own torn and 
pierced feet upon the cross. They are to be His 
errand-runners. How can we let the world, the 
flesh, and the devil have the use of what has been 
purchased with such payment ? 

Shall ' ^ the world ' ' have the use of them ? Shall 
they carry us where the world is paramount, and 
the Master cannot be even named because the 



OUR FKET KKPT FOR JKSUS. 6l 

mention of His name would be so obviously out 
of place? I know the apparent difficulties of a 
subject which will at once occur in connection 
with this, but they all vanish when our bright 
banner is loyally unfurled, with its motto, ''All 
for Jesus ! ^ * Do you honestly want your very 
feet to be '^ kept for Jesus ! *' Let these simple 
words, "Kept for Jesus,'''' ring out next time the 
dancing difficulty or any other difficulty of the 
same kind comes up, and I know what the result 
will be ! 

Shall " the flesh " have the use of them ? Shall 
they carry us hither and thither merely because 
we like to go, merely because it pleases ourselves 
to take this walk or pay this visit ? And after all, 
what a failure it is ! If people only would believe 
it, self- pleasing is always a failure in the end. Our 
good Master gives us a reality and fulness of 
pleasure in pleasing Him which we never get out 
of pleasing ourselves. 

Shall ** the devil " have the use of them ? Oh, 
no, of course not ! We start back at this, as a 
highly unnecessary question. Yet if Jesus has 
not, Satan has. For as all are serving either the 
Prince of Life or the prince of this world, and 



62 KKP^ I^OR TH^ MASTE^R'S USK. 

as no man can serve two masters, it follows that 
if we are not serving the one, we are serving the 
other. And Satan is only too glad to disguise 
this service under the less startling form of the 
world, or the still less startling one of self. All 
that is not ^^kept for Jesus,*' is left for self or 
the world, and therefore for Satan. 

There is no fear but that our Lord will have 
many uses for what is kept by Him for Himself. 
^^ How beautiful are the feet of them that bring 
glad tidings of good things! " That is the best 
use of all j and I expect the angels think those 
feet beautiful, even if they are cased in muddy 
boots or goloshes. 

Once the question was asked, '' Wherefore wilt 
thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast no tid- 
ings ready? '' So if we want to have these beau- 
tiful feet, we must have the tidings ready which 
they are to bear. Let us ask Him to keep our 
hearts so freshly full of His good news of salva- 
tion that our mouths may speak out of their 
abundance. * ' If the clouds be full of rain they 
empty themselves upon the earth. '* The '^ two 
. olive branches empty the golden oil out of them- 



OUR F^KKT KEPT FOR JE:SUS. 63 

selves/^ May we be so filled with the Spirit 
that we may thus have much to pour out for 
others ! 

Besides the great privilege of carrying water 
from the wells of salvation, there are plenty of 
cups of cold water to be carried in all directions; 
not to the poor only, — ministries of love are 
often as much needed by a rich friend. But 
the feet must be kept for these; they will be 
too tired for them if they are tired out for self- 
pleasing. In such services we are treading in the 
blessed steps of His most holy life, who ^'went 
about doing good." 

Then there is literal errand-going, — ^just to fetch 
something that is needed for the household, or 
something that a tired relative wants, whether 
asked or unasked. Such things should come first 
instead of last, because these are clearly indicated 
as our Lord's will for us to do, by the position in 
which He has placed us ; while what seei7is more 
direct service, may be after all not so directly 
apportioned by Him. ' ' I have to go and buy some 
soap," said one with a little sigh. The sigh was 
waste of breath, for her feet were going to do her 
Lord's will for that next half-hour much more 



64 KKPT FOR THEJ master's USEJ. 

truly than if they had carried her to her well- 
worked district, and left the soap to take its 
chance. 

A member of the Young Women's Christian 
Association wrote a few words on this subject, 
which, I think, will be welcome to many more 
than she expected them to reach : 

'' May it not be a comfort to those of us who 
feel we have not the mental or spiritual power 
that others have, to notice that the living sacrifice 
mentioned in Rom. xii. i is our ' bodies ? ' Of 
course, that includes the mental power, but does it 
not also include the loving, sympathizing glance, 
the kind, encouraging word, the ready erra^idfor 
another, the work of our hands, opportunities for 
all of which come oftener in the day than for the 
mental power we are often tempted to envy? 
May we be enabled to offer willingly that which 
we have." For if there be first a willing mind, 
it is accepted according to that a man hath, and 
not according to that he hath not. 

If our feet are to be kept at His disposal our 
eyes must be ever toward the Lord for guidance. 
We must look to Him for our orders where to go. 
Then He will be sure to give them. ^' The steps 



OUR FKKT KKPT FOR JKSUS. 65 

of a good man are ordered by the Lord." Very 
often we find that they have been so very literally 
ordered for us that we are quite astonished,— just' 
as if He had not promised 1 

Do not smile at a very homely thought ! If 
our feet are not our own, ought we not to take 
care of them for Him whose they are? Is it 
quite right to be reckless about *^ getting wet feet," 
which might be guarded against either by fore- 
thought or after-thought, when there is, at least, 
a risk of hindering our service thereby? Does it 
please the Master when even in our zeal for His 
work we annoy anxious friends by carelessness in 
little things of this kind ? 

May every step of our feet be more and more 
like those of our beloved Master. Let us continu- 
ally consider Him in this, and go where He would 
have gone, on the errands which He would have 
done, '' following hard " after Him. And let us 
look on to the time when our feet shall stand in 
the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, when holy 
feet shall tread the streets of the holy city; no 
longer pacing any lonely path, for He hath said, 
'' They shall walk with Me in white/' 



66 KE^PT I?OR TH^ master's USE. 

" And He hath said, * How beautiful the feet ! ^ 
The * feet ' so weary, travel-stained, and worn — 
The * feet * that humbly, patiently have borne 

The toilsome way, the pressure, and the heat. 

**The *feet,' not hasting on with winged might, 
Nor strong to trample down the opposing foe ; 
So lowly, and so human, they must go 
By painful steps to scale the mountain height. 

"Not unto all the tuneful lips are given. 
The ready tongue, the words so strong and sweet. 
Yet all may turn, with humble, willing *feet,' 

And bear to darkened souls the light from heaven. 

**And fall they while the goal far distant lies, 
"With scarce a word yet spoken for their Lord — 
His sweet approval He doth yet accord ; 
Their * feet ' are beauteous in the Master's eyes. 

** With weary human 'feet ' He, day by day, 
Once trod this earth to work His acts of love ; 
'And every step is chronicled above 
His servants take to follow in His way." 

Sarah Geraldina Stock. 



OUR VOICES KEPT FOR JKSUS. 67 

CHAPTER V. 

OUR VOICES KEPT FOR JESUS. 

** Keep my voice, and let me sing 
Always, only, for my King.'' 

1HAVE wondered a little at being told by an 
experienced worker, that in many cases the 
voice seems the last and hardest thing to yield 
entirely to the King ; and that many who think 
and say they have consecrated all to the Lord and ^ 
His service, *^ revolt'' when it comes to be a 
question whether they shall sing *' always, only,*' 
for their King. They do not mind singing a few 
general sacred songs, but they do not see their 
way to really singing always and only unto and 
for Him. They want to bargain and balance a 
little. They question and argue about what pro- 
portion they may keep for self-pleasing and com- 
pany-pleasing, and how much they must ''give 
up ; " and who will and who won't like it ; and 
what they ''really ;«//5"/ sing,*' and what they 
*' really must not sing " at certain times and places; 



68 KEPT I^OR "run MASTER'S USE. 

and what ^^ won't do/' and what they ^^ can't 
very well help/' and so on. And so when the 
question, ^ ^ How much o west thou unto my Lord ? ' ' 
is applied to this particularly pleasant gift, it is 
not met with the loyal, free-hearted, happy re- 
sponse, ^^All ! yes, all iox Jesus ! " 

I know there are special temptations around 
this matter. Vain and selfish ones — whispering 
how much better a certain song suits 3^our voice, 
and how much more likely to be admired. Faith- 
less ones — suggesting doubts whether you can 
make the holy song ^' go." Specious ones — ask- 
ing whether you ought not to please your neigh- 
bors, and hushing up the rest of the precept, ^^ Let 
every one of you please his neighbor for his good 
to edification''^ (Rom. xv. 2). Cowardly ones — 
telling you that it is just a little too much to ex- 
pect of you, and that you are not called upon to 
wave your banner in people's very faces, and pro- 
voke surprise and remark, as this might do. And 
so the banner is kept furled, the witness for Jesus 
is not borne, and you sing for others and not for 
your King. 

The words had passed your lips, *' Take my 
voice ! ' ' And yet you will not let Him have it ; 



OUR voice:s kkpt for je;sus. 69 

you will not let Him have that which costs you 
something, just because it costs you something ! 
And yet He lent you that pleasant voice, that 
you might use it for Him. And yet He, in the 
sureness of His perpetual presence, was beside 
you all the while, and heard every note as you 
sang the songs which were, as your inmost heart 
knew, not for Him. 

Where is your faith ? Where is the consecra- 
tion you have talked about ? The voice has not 
been kept for Him, because it has not been truly 
and unreservedly given to Him. Will you not 
now say, '^Take my voice, for I had not given 
it to Thee ; keep my voice, for I can not keep it 
for Thee ? " 

And He will keep it ! You can not tell, till 
you have tried, how surely all the temptations flee 
when it is no longer your battle, but the Lord's; 
nor how completely and curiously all the difficul- 
ties vanish, when you simply and trustfully go 
forward in the path of full consecration in this 
matter. You will find that the keeping is most 
wonderfully real. Do not expect to lay down 
rules and provide for every sort of contingency. 
If you could, you would miss the sweetness of the 



70 ke;pt i^or the) mastejr's usk. 

continual guidance in the '^ kept " course. Have 
only one rule about it — ^just to look up to your Mas- 
ter about every single song you are asked or feel 
inclined to sing. If you are '^willing and obe- 
dient/' you will always meet His guiding eye. He 
will always keep the voice that is wholly at His 
disposal. Soon you will have such experience of 
His immediate guidance that you will be utterly 
satisfied with it, and only sorrowfully wonder you 
did not sooner thus simply lean on it. 

I have just received a letter from one who has 
laid her special gift at the feet of the Giver, yield- 
ing her voice to Him with hearty desire that it 
might be kept for His use. She writes : ^ ^ I had 
two lessons on singing while in Germany from 
our Master. One was very sweet. A young girl 
wrote to me, that when she had heard me sing, 
^O come, every one that thirsteth,' she went away 
and prayed that she might come, and she did 
come, too. Is not He good ? The other was : I 
had been tempted to join the Gesang Verein in 

]s^ .^ J prayed to be shown whether I was 

right in so doing or not. I did not see my way 
clear, so I went. The singing was all secular. 
The very first night I went I caught a bad cold 



OUR VOICKS KKP^ F^OR JKSUS. 7 1 

on my chest, which prevented me from singing 
again at all till Christmas. Those were better 
than any lessons from a singing-master ! ' ' Does 
not this illustrate both the kee-ping from and the 
keeping /^r/ In the latter case I believe she 
honestly wished to know her Lord's will — whether 
the training and practice were needed for His 
better service with her music, and that, therefore, 
she might take them for His sake ; or whether the 
concomitants and influence would be such as to 
hinder the close communion with Him which she 
had found so precious, and that, therefore, she 
was to trust Him to give her ^^much more than 
this/' And so, at once, He showed her unmis- 
takably what He would have her nof do, and gave 
her the sweet consciousness that He Himself was 
teaching her and taking her at her word. I know 
what her passionate love for music is, and how 
very real and great the compensation from Him 
must have been which could thus make her right 
down g/ad about what would otherwise have been 
an immense disappointment. And then, as to 
the former of these two ^Messons," the song she 
names was one substituted when she said, ** Take 
my voice," for some which were far more effective 



72 ke;pt ^ok thej maste^r's us^. 

for her voice. But having freely chosen to sing 
what might glorify the Master rather than the 
singer, see how, almost immediately, He gave her 
a reward infinitely outweighing all the drawing- 
room compliments or concert-room applause ! 
That one consecrated song found echoes in 
heaven, bringing, by its blessed result, joy to the 
angels and glory to God. And the memory of 
that song is immortal ; it will live through ages to 
come, never lost, never dying away, when the 
vocal triumphs of the world^s greatest singers are 
past and forgotten forever. Now you who have 
been taking a half-and-half course, do yoi^ get 
such rewards as this ? You may well envy them ! 
But why not take the same decided course, and 
share the same blessed keeping and its fulness of 
hidden reward ? 

If you only knew, dear hesitating friends, what 
strength and gladness the Master gives when 
we loyally ^^sing forth the honor of His Name,'* 
you would not forego it ! Oh, if you only knew 
the difficulties it saves ! For when you sing '^al- 
ways and only for your King,'* you will not get 
much entangled by the King's enemies. Singing 
an out-and-out sacred song often clears one's path 



OUR VOICE^S KKPT FOR JESUS. 73 

at a stroke as to many other things. If you only 
knew the rewards He gives — very often then and 
there ; the recognition that you are one of the 
King's friends by some lonely and timid one; the 
openings which you quite naturally gain of speak- 
ing a word for Jesus to hearts which, without the 
song, would never have given you the chance of 
the word ! If you only knew the joy of believing 
that His sure promise, '^ My Word shall not return 
unto me void/' will be fulfilled as you singihsit 
word for Him ! If you only tasted the solemn 
happiness of knowing that you have indeed a 
royal audience, that the King Himself is listening 
as you sing ! If you only knew — and why should 
you not know ? Shall not the time past of your 
life suffice you for the miserable, double-hearted 
calculating service? Let Him have the whole 
use of your voice at any cost, and see if He does 
not put many a totally unexpected new song into 
your mouth ! 

I am not writing all this to great and finished 
singers, but to everybody who can sing at all. 
Those who think they have, only a very small 
talent, are often most tempted not to trade with 
it for their Lord. Whether you have much or 



74 KKPi" i^oR ^he: master's USK. 

little natural voice, there is reason for its cul- 
tivation and room for its use. Place it at your 
Lord's disposal, and He will show you how to 
make the most of it for Him ; for not seldom 
His multiplying power is brought to bear on a 
consecrated voice. A puzzled singing-master, 
very famous in his profession, said to one who 
tried to sing for Jesus, ^' Well, you have not much 
voice ; but, mark my words, you will always beat 
anybody with four times your voice ! ' * He was 
right, though he did not in the least know why. 

A great many so-called '^ sacred songs '^ are so 
plaintive and pathetic, that they help to give a 
gloomy idea of religion. Now don^t sing these; 
come out boldly, and sing definitely and unmis- 
takably for your King, and of your King, and to 
your King. You will soon find, and even out- 
siders will have to own, that it is a good thing 
thus to show forth His loving kindness and His 
faithfulness (see Ps. xcii. 1-3). 

Here I am usually met by the query, ^^But 
what would you advise me to sing ? ' ' I can only 
say that I never got any practical help from ask- 
ing any one but the Master Himself, and so I 



OUR voice:s kkpt for j^sus. 75 

would advise you to do the same ! He knows ex- 
actly what will best suit your voice and enable 
you to sing best for Him ; for He made it, and 
gave it just the pitch and tone He pleased ; so, 
of course. He is the best counsellor about it. 
Refer your question in simplest faith to Him, and 
I am perfectly sure you will find it answered. He 
will direct you, and in some way or other the 
Lord will provide the right songs for you to sing. 
That is the very best advice I can possibly give 
you on the subject, and you will prove it to be so 
if you will act upon it. 

Only one thing I would add : I believe there 
is nothing like singing His own words. The 
preacher claims the promise, ^'My word shall 
not return unto Me void," and why should not 
the singer equally claim it ? Why should we use 
His own inspired words, with faith in their 
power, when speaking or writing, and content 
ourselves with human words put into rhyme (and 
sometimes very feeble rhyme) for our singing ? 

What a vista of happy work opens out here ! 
What is there to prevent our using this mightiest 
of all agencies committed to human agents, the 
Word, which is quick and powerful, and sharper 



76 KE:pT for THE) MASTE^R'S USE). 

than a two-edged sword, whenever we are asked to 
sing ? By this means even a young girl may be 
privileged to make that Word sound in the ears 
of many who would not listen to it otherwise. 
By this the incorruptible seed may be sown in 
otherwise unreachable ground. 

It is a remarkable fact that it is actually the 
easiest way thus to take the very highest ground. 
You will find that singing Bible words does not 
excite the prejudice 'or contempt that any other 
words, sufficiently decided to be worth singing, 
are almost sure to do. For very decency's sake 
a Bible song will be listened to respectfully; and 
for very shame's sake no adverse whisper will be 
ventured against the words in ordinary English 
homes. The singer is placed on a vantage 
ground, certain that at least the words of the 
song will be outwardly respected, and the pos- 
sible ground of unfriendly criticism thus narrowed 
to begin with. 

But there is much more than this. One feels 
the power of His words for oneself as one sings. 
One loves them and rejoices in them, and what 
can be greater help to any singer than that? 
And one knows they are true, and that they can 



OUR VOICES KEPT FOR JESUS. 77 

not really return void, and what can give greater 
confidence than that ? God may bless the sing- 
ing of any words, but He must bless the singing 
of His own Word, if that promise means what it 
says ! 

The only real difficulty in the matter is, that 
Scripture songs, as a rule, require a little more 
practice than others. Then practice them a little 
more ! You think nothing of the trouble of 
learning, for instance, a sonata, which takes you 
many a good hour's practice before you can ren- 
der it perfectly and expressively. But you shrink 
from a song, the accompaniment of which you 
cannot read off without any trouble at all. And 
you never think of such a thing as taking one-tenth 
the pains to learn that accompaniment that you 
took to learn that sonata ! Very likely, too, you 
take the additional pains to learn the sonata off 
by heart, so that you can play it more effectively. 
But you do not take pains to learn your accompani- 
ment by heart, so that you may throw all your power 
into the expression of the words, undistracted by 
reading the notes and turning over the leaves. 
It is far more useful to have half a dozen Scrip- 
ture songs thoroughly learnt and made your own 



78 KEPT I^OR THE MASTER'S USE. 

than to have in your portfolios several dozen easy 
settings of sacred poetry which you get through 
with your eyes fixed on the notes. And every 
one thus thoroughly mastered makes it easier to 
master others. 

You will say that all this refers only to draw- 
ing-room singing. So it does, primarily, but 
then it is the drawing-room singing which has 
been so little for Jesus and so much for self and 
society ; and so much less has been said about it, 
and so much less done. There would not be half 
the complaints of the difficulty of witnessing for 
Christ in even professedly Christian homes and 
circles, if every converted singer were also a con- 
secrated one. For nothing raises or lowers the 
.tone of a whole evening so much as the character 
of the music. There are few things which show 
more clearly that, as a rule, a very definite step in 
advance is needed beyond being a believer or 
even a worker for Christ. Over how many grand 
or cottage pianos could the Irish Society's motto, 
*^For Jesus' sake only,'' be hung, without being 
either a frequent reproach, or altogether inappro- 
priate ? 

But what is learnt will, naturally, be sung. And 



OUR VOICES KEPT FOR JESUS. 79 

oh ! how many Christian parents give their daugh- 
ters the advantage of singing lessons without 
troubling themselves in the least about what songs 
are learnt, provided they are not exceptionally 
foolish ! Still more pressingly I would say, how 
many Christian principals, to whom young lives 
are entrusted at the most important time of all 
for training, do not give themselves the least con- 
cern about this matter. As I write, I turn aside 
to refer to a list of songs learnt last term by a 
fresh young voice which would willingly be trained 
for higher work. There is just one ^^ sacred'' 
song in the whole long list, and even that hardly 
such a one as the writer of the letter above quoted 
would care to sing in her fervent-spirited service 
of Christ. All the rest are harmless and pleasing, 
but only suggestive of the things of earth, the 
things of the world that is passing away; not 
one that might lead upward and onward, not one 
that might touch a careless heart to seek first the 
kingdom of God, not one that might show forth 
the glory aiid praise of our King, not one that 
tells of His grace and love, not one that carries 
His comfort to His weary ones or His joy to His 
loving ones. She is left to find and learn such 



8o KEPT i^OR The master's use. 

songs as best she may ; those which she will sing 
with all the ease and force gained by good teach- 
ing of them are no help at all, but rather hin- 
drance in anything like wish or attempt to '^ sing 
for Jesus. ' ' 

There is not the excuse that the songs of God's 
kingdom, songs which waft his own words to the 
souls around, would not have answered the teach- 
er's purpose as well. God has taken care of that. 
He has not left Himself without witness in this 
direction. He has given the most perfect melo- 
dies and the richest harmonies to be linked with 
His own words, and no singer can be trained be- 
yond His wonderful provision in this way. I 
pray that even these poor words of mine may 
reach the consciences of some of those who have 
this responsibility, and lead them to be no longer 
unfaithful in this important matter, no longer giv- 
ing this strangely divided service — training, as 
they profess to desire, the souls for God, and yet 
allowing the voices to be trained only for the 
world. 

But we must not run away with the idea that 
singing sacred songs and singing for Jesus are 




Kept for the Master's Use. 
THE NIGHT OF THE NATIVITY. ARRIVAL IN BETHLEHEM. 



OUR VOICES KKPT FOR JKSUS. 8 1 

convertible terms. I know by sorrowful personal 
experience that it is very possible to sing a sacred 
song and not sing it for Jesus. It is easier to have 
one's portfolio all right than one^s heart, and the ^ 
repertory is more easily arranged than the motives. 
When we have taken our side, and the difficulties 
of indecision are consequently swept away, we have 
a new set of more subtle temptations to encounter. 
And although the Master will keep, the servant 
must watch and pray; and it is through the watch- 
ing and the praying that the keeping will be effec- 
tual. We have, however, rather less excuse here 
than even elsewhere. For we never have to sing 
so very suddenly that we need be taken unawares. 
We have to think what to sing, and perhaps find 
the music, and the prelude has to be played, and 
all this gives quite enough time for us to recollect . 
whose we are and whom we serve, and to arouse 
to the watch. Quite enough, too, for quick, 
trustful prayer that our singing may be kept free 
from that wretched self-seeking or even self-con- 
sciousness, and kept entirely for Jesus. Our best 
and happiest singing will flow when there is a 
sweet, silent undercurrent of prayerful or praise- 
ful communion with our Master all through the 
6 



82 KKPT FOR the: mast£:r*s usk. 

song. As for nervousness, I am quite sure this is 
the best antidote to that. 

On the other hand, it is quite possible to sing 
for Jesus without singing a sacred song. Do not 
take an ell for the inch; this seems to give and 
run off with the idea that it does not matter after 
all what you sing, so that you sing in a good 
frame of mind ! No such thing ! And the ad- 
mission needs very careful guarding, and must not 
be wrested into an excuse for looking back to the 
world's songs. But cases may and do arise in 
which it may be right to gratify a weary father, 
or win a wayward brother, by trying to please 
them with music to which they will listen when 
they would not listen to the songs you would 
rather sing. There are cases in which this may 
be done most truly for the Lord's sake, and 
clearly under His guidance. 

Sometimes cases arise in which we can only 
say, ^^ Neither know we what to do, but our eyes 
are upon Thee." And when we honestly say 
that, depend upon it we shall find the promise 
true, ^^I will guide thee with Mine eye." For 
God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be 
tempted above that ye are able, but will, with the 



OUR VOICES KEPT FOR JESUS. 83 

temptation, also make a way (Gr. the way) to 
escape, that ye may be able to bear it. 

I do not know why it should be so, but it cer- 
tainly is a much rarer thing to find a young gen- 
tleman singing for Jesus than a young lady — a 
very rare thing to find one with a cultivated voice 
consecrating it to the Master's use. I have met 
some who were not ashamed to speak for Him, to 
whom it never seemed even to occur to sing for 
Him. They would go and teach a Bible class 
one day, and the next they would be practicing 
or performing just the same songs as those who 
care nothing for Christ and His blood-bought 
salvation. They had left some things behind, 
but they had not left any of their old songs be- 
hind. They do not seem to think that being 
made new creatures in Christ Jesus had anything 
to do with this department of their lives. Nobody 
could gather whether they were on the Lord^s 
side or not, as they stood and sang their neutral 
songs. The banner that was displayed in the 
class-room was furled in the drawing-room. Now, 
my friends, you who have or may have far greater 
opportunities of displaying that banner than we 
womenkind, why should you be less brave and 



84 KKPT I^OR THK MASTKR^S US^. 

loyal than your sisters ? We are weak and you 
are strong naturally, but recollect that want of 
decision always involves want of power, and com- 
promising Christians are always weak Christians. 
You will never be mighty to the pulling down of 
strongholds while you have one foot in the ene- 
my's camp, or on the supposed neutral ground, if 
such can exist (which I doubt), between the 
camps. You will never be a terror to the devil 
till you have enlisted every gift and faculty on the 
Lord's side. Here is a thing in which you may 
practically carry out the splendid motto, ^^All for 
Jesus.'' You cannot be all for Him as long as 
your voice is not for Him. Which shall it be? 
All for Him, ox partly for Him ? Answer that to 
Him whom you call Master and Lord. 

When once this drawing-room question is set- 
tled, there is not much need to expatiate about 
other forms of singing for Jesus. As we have op- 
portunity we shall be willing to do good with our 
pleasant gift in any way or place, and it is won- 
derful what nice opportunities He makes for us. 
Whether to one little sick child, or to a thousand 
listeners, according to the powers and openings 
granted, we shall take our happy position among 



OUR VOICES KEPT FOR JKSUS. 85 

those who minister with singmg (i Chron. vi. 32). 
And in so far as we really do this unto the Lord, 
I am quite sure He gives the hundredfold now in 
this present time more than all the showy songs 
or self-gratifying performances we may have left 
for His sake. As we steadily tread this part of 
the path of consecration, we shall find the diffi- 
culties left behind, and the real pleasantness of 
the way reached, and it will be a delight to say 
to oneself, ^^I cannot sing the old songs; " and 
though you have thought it quite enough to say, 
*^ With my song will I please my friends, '' espe- 
cially if they happened to be pleased with a mildly 
sacred song or two, you will strike a higher and 
happier, a richer and purer note, and say with 
David, *^With my song will I praise Hiniy 
David said also, ''My lips shall greatly rejoice 
when I sing unto Thee, and my soul, which Thou 
hast redeemed/* And you will find that this 
comes true. 

Singing for Jesus, our Saviour and King ; 

Singing for Jesus, the Lord whom we love ! 
All adoration we joyously bring, 

Longing to praise as they praise Ilim above. 



86 KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 

Singing for Jesus, our Master and Friend, 

Telling His love and His marvellous grace, — 

Love from eternity, love to the end, 

Love for the loveless, the sinful, and base. 

Singing for Jesus, and trying to win 

Many to love Him, and join in the song ; 

Calling the weary and wandering in, 
Rolling the chorus of gladness along. 

Singing for Jesus, our Life and our Light ; 

Singing for Him as we press to the mark ; 
Singing for Him when the morning is bright ; 

Singing, still singing, for Him in the dark ! 

Singing for Jesus, our Shepherd and Guide ; 

Singing for gladness of heart that He gives ; 
Singing for wonder and praise that He died ; 

Singing for blessing and joy that He lives ! 

Singing for Jesus^ oh, singing with joy ; 

Thus will we praise Him, and tell out His love, 
Till He shall t^all us to brighter employ, 

Singing for Jesus forever above. 



OUR i^ips ke:pt i^or jksus. 87 



CHAPTER VI. 

OUR LIPS KEPT FOR JESUS. 

" Keep my lips, that they may be 
Filled with messages from Thee.'* 

THE days are past forever when we said, " Our 
lips are our own.'' Now we know that 
they are not our own. 
And yet how many of my readers often have the 
miserable consciousness that they have ^* spoken 
unadvisedly with their lips ! ' ' How many pray, 
'^ Keep the door of my lips," when the very last 
thing they think of expecting is that they will be 
kept ! They deliberately make up their minds 
that hasty words, or foolish words, or exaggerated 
words, according to their respective temptations, 
must and will slip out of that door, and that it 
can't be helped. The extent of the real meaning 
of their prayer was merely that not quite so many 
might slip out. As their faith went no farther, 
the answer went no farther, and so the door was 
not kept. 



88 ke;pt for run master's use. 

Do let us look the matter straight in the face. 
Either we have committed our lips to our Lord, 
or we have not. This question must be settled 
first. If not, oh, do not let another hour pass ! 
Take them to Jesus, and ask Him to take them. 

But when you /lave committed them to Him, 
it comes to this, — is He able or is He not able to 
keep that which you have committed to Him ? If 
He is not able, of course you may as well give up 
at once, for your own experience has abundantly 
proved that you are not able, so there is no help 
for you. But if He is able — nay, thank God 
there is no ^^//"" on this side! — say, rather, as 
He is able, where was this inevitable necessity of 
perpetual failure ? You have been fancying your- 
self virtually doomed and fated to it, and there- 
fore you have gone on in it, while all the time 
His arm was not shortened that it could not save, 
but you have been limiting the Holy One of 
Israel. Honestly, now, have you trusted Him to 
keep your lips f/iis day ? Trust necessarily implies 
expectation that what we have entrusted will be 
kept. If you have not expected Him to keep, 
you have not trusted. You may have tried and 
tried very hard, but you have not trusted, and 



OUR UPS KKPT FOR JKSUS. 89 

therefore you have not been kept, and your Hps 
have been the snare of your soul (Prov. xviii. 7). 

Once I heard a beautiful prayer which I can 
never forget ; it was this : " Lord, take my lips, 
and speak through them ; take my mind, and think 
through it; take my heart, and set it on fire.'* 
And this is the way the Master keeps the lips of 
His servants, by so filling their hearts with His 
love that the outflow can not be unloving, by so 
filling their thoughts that the utterance can not 
be un- Christ-like. There must be filling before 
there can be pouring out ; and if there is filling, 
there must be pouring out, for He hath said, **Out 
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh/ ' 

But I think we should look for something more 
direct and definite than this. We are not all 
called to be the King^s ambassadors, but all who 
have heard the messages of salvation for them- 
selves are called to be '^ the Lord's messengers," 
and day by day, as He gives us opportunity, we 
are to deliver '^ the Lord's message unto the peo- 
ple." That message, as committed to Haggai, 
was, ^' I am with you, saith the Lord." Is there 
not work enough for any lifetime in unfolding 
and distributing that one message to His own peo- 



90 KEPT i^OR the; master's use. 

pie? Then, for those who are still far off, we 
have that equally full message from our Lord 
to give out, which He has condensed for us into 
the one word, '' Come ! '^ 

It is a specially sweet part of His dealings with 
His messengers that He always gives us the mes- 
sage for ourselves first. It is what He has first 
told us in darkness — that is, in the secrecy of our 
own rooms, or at least of our own hearts — that 
He bids us speak in light. And so the more we 
sit at His feet and watch to see what He has to 
say to ourselves, the more we shall have to tell to 
others. He does not send us out with sealed dis- 
patches, which we know nothing about, and with 
which we have no concern. 

There seems a seven-fold sequence in His filling 
the lips of His messengers. First, they must be 
purified. The live coal from off the altar must 
be laid upon them, and He must say, *^Lo, this 
hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken 
away, and thy sin is purged. '^ Then He will 
create the fruit of them, and this seems to be the 
great message of peace, '' Peace to him that is far 
off and to him that is near, saith the Lord ; and 
I will heal him'* (see Isa. lvii.19). Then comes 



OUR I.IPS KEPI" P'OR JESUS. 9I 

the prayer, ^'O Lord, open Thou my lips,'^ and 
its sure fulfiUment. For then come in the prom- 
ises, ^^ Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth," 
and, ^^ They shall withal be fitted in thy lips." 
Then, of course, ^^the lips of the righteous feed 
many," for the food is the Lord's own giving. 
Everything leads up to praise, and so we come 
next to '^ My mouth shall praise Thee with joyful 
lips, when I remember Thee." And lest we should 
fancy that '^when^^ rather implies that it is not, 
or can not be, exactly always, we find that the 
mediation of Jesus throws this added light upon 
it, " hy Hi77t, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice 
of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of 
our lips, giving thanks to " (margin, confessing) 
** His name." 

Does it seem a coming down from the mount 
to glance at one of our King's commandments, 
which is specially needful and applicable to this 
matter of our lips being kept for Him ? ^^ Watch 
and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." 
None of His commands clash with or supersede 
one another. Trusting does not supersede watch- 
ing ; it does but complete and effectuate it. Un- 
watchful trust is a delusion, an untrustfiil watch- 



92 KKPT FOR THE master's USE. 

ing is in vain. Therefore, let us not either will- 
fully or carelessly enter into temptation, whether 
of place, or person, or topic, which has any 
tendency to endanger the keeping of our lips for 
Jesus. Let us pray that grace may be more and 
more poured into our lips as it was into His, so 
that our speech may be alway with grace. May 
they be pure, and sweet, and lovely, even as '^His 
lips, like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh.' ^ 

We can hardly consider the keeping of our lips 
without recollecting that upon them, more than 
all else, (though not exclusively of all else), de- 
pends that greatest of our responsibilities, our 
influence. ^We have no choice in the matter ; we 
can not evade or avoid it ; and there is no more 
possibility of our limiting it, or even tracing its 
limits, than there is of setting a bound to the 
far- vibrating sound-waves, or watching their flow 
through the invisible air. Not one sentence that 
passes these lips of ours but must be an invisibly 
prolonged influence, not dying away into silence, 
but living away into the words and deeds of others. 
The thought would not be quite so oppressive if 
we could know what we have done and shall be 



OUR I.IPS KEPT FOR JKSUS. 93 

continuing to do by what we have said. But we 
never can, as a matter of fact. We may trace it 
a little way, and get a glimpse of some results for 
good or evil ; but we never can see any more of 
it than we can see of a shooting star flashing 
through the night with a momentary revelation 
of one step of its strange path. Even if the next 
instant plunges it into apparent annihilation as it 
strikes the atmosphere of the earth, we know that it 
is not really so, but that its mysterious material and 
force must be added to the complicated materials 
and forces with which it has come in contact, with 
a modifying power none the less real because it is 
beyond our ken. And this is not comparing a great 
thing with a small, but a small thing with a great. 
For what is material force compared with moral 
force ? What are gases, and vapors, and elements 
compared with souls and the eternity for which 
they are preparing ? 

We all know that there is influence exerted by 
a person's mere presence, without the utterance 
of a single word. We are conscious of this every 
day. People seem to carry an atmosphere with 
them, which mii-st be breathed by those whom 
they approach. Some carry an atmosphere in 



94 KKPT FOR "TJIH MASTER'S USE). 

which all unkind thoughts shrivel up and cannot 
grow into expression. Others carry one in which 
^^ thoughts of Christ and things divine" never 
seem able to flourish. Have you not felt how a 
happy conversation about the things we love best 
is checked, or even strangled, by the entrance of 
one who is not in sympathy? Outsiders have 
not a chance of ever really knowing what de- 
lightful intercourse we have one with another 
about these things, because their very presence 
chills and changes it. On the other hand, how 
another person's incoming freshens and develops 
it, and warms us all up, and seems to give us, 
without the least conscious effort, a sort of ///? / 

If even unconscious and involuntary influence 
is such a power, how much greater must it be 
when the recognized power of words is added ! 

It has often struck me as a matter of observa- 
tion, that open profession adds force to this in- 
fluence, on whichever side it weighs ; and also 
that it has the effect of making many a word and 
act, which might in other hands have been as 
nearly neutral as anything can be, tell with by 
no means neutral tendency on the wrong side. 
The question of Eliphaz comes with great force 



OUR I,IPS KKPl" FOR JESUS. 95 

when applied to one who desires or professes to 
be consecrated altogether, life and lips : " Should 
he reason with unprofitable talk and with speeches 
wherewith one can do no good ?''' There is our 
standard ! Idle words, which might have fallen 
comparatively harmlessly from one who had never 
named the Name of Christ, may be a stumbling- 
block to inquirers, a sanction to thoughtless 
juniors, and a grief to thoughtful seniors, when 
they come from lips which are professing to feed 
many. Even intelligent talk on general subjects 
by such a one may be a chilling disappointment 
to some craving heart, which had indulged the 
hope of getting help, comfort, or instruction in 
the things of God by listening to the conversa- 
tion. It may be a lost opportunity of giving and 
gaining no one knows how much ! 

How well I recollect this disappointment to 
myself, again and again, when a mere child ! In 
those early seeking days I never could understand 
why, sometimes, a good man whom I heard 
preach or speak as if he loved Christ very much, 
talk about all sorts of other things when we came 
back from church or missionary meeting. I did 
so wish he would have talked about the Saviour, 



96 KEPT I^OR THK master's USE. 

whom I wanted, but had not found. It would 
have been so much more interesting, even to the 
apparently thoughtless and merry little girl. How 
could he help it, I wondered, if he cared for that 
Pearl of Great Price as I was sure I should care 
for it if I could only find it ! And oh ! why 
didn't they ever talk to me about it, instead of 
about my lessons or their little girls at home? 
They did not know how their conversation was 
observed and compared with their sermon or 
speech, and how a hungry little soul went empty 
away from the supper -table. 

The lips of younger Christians may cause, in 
their turn, no less disappointment. One sorrow- 
ful lesson I can never forget ; and I will tell the 
story in hope that it may save others from causes 
of similar regret. During a summer visit, just 
after I had left school, a class of girls about my 
own age came to me a few times for an hour's 
singing. It was very pleasant indeed, and the 
girls were delighted with the hymns. They 
listened to all I had to say about time and expres- 
sion, and not with less attention to the more 
shyly-ventured remarks about the words. Some- 
times I accompanied them afterwards down the 



OUR UPS KEPT FOR JESUS. 97 

avenue; and whenever I met any of them I had 
smiles and plenty of kindly words for each, which 
they seemed to appreciate immensely. A few 
years afterwards I sat by the bedside of one 
of these girls-the most gifted of them all with 
both heart and head. She had been led by 
a wonderful way, and through long and deep 
suffering, into far clearer light than I enjoyed 
and had witnessed for Christ in more ways than 
one, and far more brightly than I had ever done 
She told me how sorrowfully and eagerly she was 
seekmg Jesus at the time of those singing-classes 
And I never knew it, because I never asked, and 
she was too shy to speak first ! But she told me 
niore, and every word was a pang to me,-how 
she used to linger in the avenue on those summer 
evenings, longing that I would speak to her about 
the Saviour; how she hoped, week after week that 
I would just stretch out a hand to help her; just 
say one little word that might be God's messa^e 
of peace to her, instead of the pleasant, ge^er^l 
remarks about the nice hymns and tunes. And I 
never did! And she went on for months, I 
think for years, after, without the light and glad- 
ness which it might have been my privilege to 



98 KKPl" I^OR THEJ MASTER'S USE). 

bring to her life. God chose other means, for 
the souls that he has given to Christ cannot be 
lost because of the unfaithfulness of a human 
instrument. But she said, and the words often 
ring in my ears when I am tempted to let an 
opportunity slip, ^'Ah, Miss F., I ought to have 
been yours / ' ' 

Yes, it is true enough that we should show forth 
His praise not only with our lips, but in our lives ; 
but with very many Christians the other side of 
the prayer wants praying — they want rousing up 
even to wish to show it forth not only in their 
lives, but with their lips. I wonder how many, 
even of those who read this, really pray, *'0 
Lord, open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall 
show forth Thy praise. '^ 

And when opened, oh, how much one does 
want to have them so kept for Jesus that He may 
be free to make the most of them, not letting 
them render second-rate and indirect service 
when they might be doing direct and first-rate 
service to His cause and kingdom ! It is terrible 
how much less is done for Him than might be 
done, in consequence of the specious notion that 
if what we are doing or saying is not bad, we are 



OUR I.IPS KKPT FOR JKSUS. 99 

doing good in a certain way, and therefore may- 
be quite easy about it. We should think a man 
rather foolish if he went on doing work which 
earned five shillings a week, when he might just 
as well do work in the same establishment and 
under the same master which would bring him in 
five pounds a week. But we should pronounce 
him shamefully dishonest and dishonorable if he 
accepted such handsome wages as the five pounds, 
and yet chose to do work worth only five shillings, 
excusing himself by saying that it was work all 
the same, and somebody had better do it. Do 
we not act something like this when we take the 
lower standard, and spend our strength in just 
making ourselves agreeable and pleasant, creating 
a general good impression in favor of religion, 
showing that we can be all things to all men, and 
that one who is supposed to be a citizen of the 
other world can be very well up in all that con- 
cerns this world? This may be good, but is there 
nothing better? What does it profit if we do 
make this favorable impression on an outsider, if 
we go no farther and do not use the influence 
gained to bring him right inside the fold, inside 
the only ark of safety? People are not converted 



loo ke:pt for thk master's use;. 

by this sort of work ; at any rate /never met or 
heard of any one. " He thinks it better for his 
quiet influence to tell ! ' ' said an affectionately 
excusing relative of one who had plenty of special 
opportunities of soul-winning, if he had only used 
his lips as well as his life for his Master. *^And 
how many souls have been converted to God by 
his * quiet influence ' all these years ? ' ' was my 
reply. And to that there was no answer ! For 
the silent shining was all very beautiful in theory, 
but not one of the many souls placed specially 
under his influence had been known to be brought 
out of darkness into marvellous light. If they 
had, they must have been known, for such light 
can't help being seen. 

When one has even a glimmer of the tremen- 
dous difference betweea having Christ and being 
without Christ; when one gets but one shudder- 
ing glimpse of what eternity is, and of what it 
must mean, as well as what it may mean, without 
Christ; when one gets but a flash of realization of 
the tremendous fact that all these neighbors of 
ours, rich and poor alike, will have to spend that 
eternity either with Him or without Him, — it is 
hard, very hard indeed, to understand how a man 



OUR I.IPS KEPT FOR JESUS. lOI 

or woman can believe these things at all, and 
make no effort for anything beyond the temporal 
elevation of those around, sometimes not even 
beyond their amusements ! '' People must have 
entertainment," they urge. I do not find that 
must in the Bible, but I do find, *^We must dXl 
stand before the judgment-seat of Christ." And 
if you have any sort of belief in that, how can you 
care to use those lips of yours, which might be a 
fountain of life to the dying souls before you, 
merely to '' entertain " them at your penny read- 
ing or other entertainment ? As you sow, so you 
reap. The amusing paper is read, or the lively 
ballad recited, or the popular song sung, and you 
reap your harvest of laughter or applause, and of 
complacence at your success in ^'entertaining" 
the people. And there it ends, when you might 
have sown words from which you and they should 
reap fruit unto life eternal. Is this worthy work 
for one who has been bought with such a price 
that he must say, 

^* Love so amazing, so divine, 
Demands my soul, my life, my all?" 

So far from yielding ''all" to that rightful 



I02 KKPT I^OR THE) MASTE:r'S USK. 

demand of amazing love, he does not even yield 
the fruit of his lips to it, much less the lips 
themselves. I cannot refrain from adding, that 
even this lower aim of *^ entertaining " is by no 
means so appreciated as is supposed. As a cot- 
tager of no more than average sense and intelli- 
gence remarked, ^*It was all so trifling at the 
reading; I wish gentlefolks would believe that 
poor people like something better than what's 
just to make them laugh.*' After all, nothing 
really pays like direct, straightforward, uncom- 
promising words about God and His works and 
word. Nothing else ever made a man say, as a 
poor Irishman did when he heard the Good News 
for the first time, ^* Thank ye, sir; you've taken 
the hunger off us to-day ! ' ' 

Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord ; 
what about ours? Well, they are all uttered 
before the Lord in one sense, whether we will or 
no ; for there is not a word in my tongue, but lo. 
Thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether ! How 
solemn is this thought, but how sweet does it 
become when our words are uttered consciously 
before the Lord as we walk in the light of his 



OUR I<IPS KKPT F^OR JKSUS. IO3 

perpetual presence ! Oh, that we may so walk, 
that we may so speak, with kept feet and kept 
lips, trustfully praying, '^ Let the meditation of my 
heart and the words of my mouth be always 
acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and 
my Redeemer ! ' * 

Bearing in mind that it is not only the words 
which pass their lightly-hinged portal, but our 
literal lips which are to be kept for Jesus, it can 
not be out of place, before closing this chapter, 
to suggest that they open both ways. What 
passes in should surely be considered as well as 
what passes out. And very many of us are be- 
ginning to see that the command, ^^ Whether ye 
eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God,'' is not fully obeyed when we 
drink, merely because we like it, what is the very 
greatest obstacle to that glory in this realm of 
England. What matter that we prefer taking it 
in a more refined form, if the thing itself is 
daily and actively and mightily working misery, 
and crime and death, and destruction to thousands, 
till the cry thereof seems as if it must pierce the 
very heavens ! And so it does — sooner, a great 



I04 KKPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 

deal, than it pierces the walls of our comfortable 
dining-room ! I only say here, you who have 
said, *^ Take my lips," stop and repeat that prayer 
next time you put that to your lips which is bind- 
ing men and women hand and foot, and deliver- 
ing them over, helpless, to Satan ! Let those 
w^ords pass once more from your heart out through 
your lips, and I do not think you will feel com- 
fortable in letting the means of such infernal 
work pass in through them. 



OUR SII^VKR AND GOIvD KE:pT FOR JE:SUS. IO5 



CHAPTER VII. 

OUR SILVER AND GOLD KEPT FOR JESUS. 

" Keep my silver and my gold, 
Not a mite would I withhold." 

'^ THHE silver and the gold is Mine, saith the 
1 Lord of Hosts. ' ' Yes, every coin we have 
is literally our ^^Lord^s money.*' Simple 
belief of this fact is the stepping-stone to full 
consecration of what He has given us, whether 
much or little. 

^' Then you mean to say we are never to spend 
anything on ourselves?*' Not so. Another 
fact must be considered, — the fact that our Lord 
has given us our bodies as a special personal 
charge, and that we are responsible for keeping 
these bodies, according to the means given and 
the work required, in working order for Him. 
This is part of our *^ own work.*' A master 
entrusts a workman with a delicate machine, with 
which his appointed work is to be done. He 
also provides him with a sum of money with 



Io6 KE:?^ for THE) MASTER'S USK. 

which he is to procure all that may be necessary 
for keeping the machine in thorough repair. Is 
it not obvious that it is the man's distinct duty to 
see to this faithfully ? Would he not be failing in 
duty if he chose to spend it all on something for 
somebody else's work, or on a present for his 
master, fancying that would please him better, 
while the machine is creaking and wearing for 
want of a little oil, or working badly for want of 
a new band or screw? Just so, we are to spend 
what is really needful on ourselves, because it is 
our charge to do so ; but not y2?r ourselves, because 
we are not our own, but our Master's. He who 
knoweth our frame, knows its need of rest and 
medicine, food and clothing ; and the procuring 
of these for our own entrusted bodies should be 
done just as much ^^ for Jesus" as the greater 
pleasure of procuring them for some one else. 
Therefore there need be no quibbling over the 
assertion that consecration is not real and com- 
plete while we are looking upon a single shilling as 
our own to do what we like with. Also the princi- 
ple is exactly the same, whether we are spending 
pence or pounds; it is our Lord's money and 
must not be spent without reference to Him. 



OUR SII^VER AND GOI.D KEPT FOR JKSUS. I07 

When we have asked Him to take, and con- 
tinually trust Him to keep our money, ^^ shop- 
ping" becomes a different thing. We look up to 
our Lord for guidance to lay out His money pru- 
dently and rightly, and as He would have us lay 
it out. The gift or garment is selected consciously 
under His eye, and with conscious reference to 
Him as our own dear Master, for whose sake we 
shall give it, or in whose service we shall wear it, 
and whose own silver or gold we shall pay for it, 
and then it is all right. 

But have you found out that it is one of the 
secrets of the Lord, that when any of His dear 
children turn aside a little bit after having once 
entered the blessed path of true and conscious 
consecration. He is sure to send them some little 
punishment ? He will not let us go back without 
a sharp, even if quite secret, reminder. Go and 
spend ever such a little without reference to Him 
after you have once pledged the silver and gold 
entirely to Him, and see .if you are not in some 
way rebuked for it ! Very often by being per- 
mitted to find that you have made a mistake in 
your purchase, or that in some way it does not 
prosper. If you *' observe these things," you 



I08 KEPT IJ^OR THE MASTER'S USE. 

will find that the more closely we are walking with 
our Lord, the more immediate and unmistakable 
will be His gracious rebukes when we swerve in 
any detail of the full consecration to which He 
has called us. And if you have already experi- 
enced and recognized this part of His personal 
dealing with us, you will know also how we love 
and bless Him for it. 

There is always a danger that just because we 
say ^^ all, ' ' we may practically fall shorter than if we 
had only said ^^some/' but said it very definitely. 
God recognizes this and provides against it in 
many departments. For instance, though our 
time is to be'^all'^ for Him, yet He solemnly 
sets apart the one day in seven which is to be 
specially for Him. Those who think they know 
better than Qod, and profess that every day is a 
Sabbath, little know what flood-gates of tempta- 
tion they are opening by being so very wise above 
what is written. God knows best, and that should 
be quite enough for every loyal heart. So, as to 
money, though we place it all at our Lord's dis- 
posal, and rejoice to spend it all for Him directly 
or indirectly, yet I am quite certain it is a great 



OUR SIIvVER AND GOI.D KKPT FOR JKSUS. I09 

help and safeguard, and, what is more, a matter 
of simple obedience to the spirit of His com- 
mands, to set aside a definite and regular propor- 
tion of our income or receipts for His direct 
service. It is a great mistake to suppose that the 
law of giving the tenth to God is merely Leviti- 
cal. '* Search and look " for yourselves, and you 
will find that it is, like the Sabbath, a far older 
rule, running all through the Bible,* and en- 
dorsed, not abrogated, by Christ Himself. For, 
speaking of tithes. He said, *^ These ought y^ to 
have done, and not to leave the other undone." 
To dedicate the tenth of whatever we have is 
mere duty; charity begins beyond it; free-will 
offerings and thank-offerings beyond that again. 

First-fruits, also, should be thus specially set 
apart. This, too, we find running all through 
the Bible. There is a tacit appeal to our grati- 
tude in the suggestion of them, — the very word 
implies bounty received and bounty in prospect. 
Bringing ^'the first of the first-fruits into the 

^ See Gen. xiv. 20 xxviii, 22 ; Lev. xxvii. 30, 32; Num. 
xviii, 21 ; Deut. xiv. 22; 2 Chron. xxxi. 5, 6, 12; Neh. x. 
37, xii. 44, xiii. 12; Mai. iii. 8, 10; Mat. xxii. 23; Luke 
xi. 42; I Cor. xvi. 2; Heb. vii. 8. 



no KEPT FOR 'THK master's USK. 

house of the Lord thy God," was like ^^ saying 
grace ' * for all the plenty He was going to bestow 
on the faithful Israelite. Something of gladness, 
too, seems always implied. ^^The day of the 
first-fruits " was to be a day of rejoicing (compare 
Num. xxviii. 26 with Deut. xvi. 10, 11). There 
is also an appeal to loyalty : we are commanded 
to Jionor the Lord with the first-fruits of all our 
increase. And that is the way to prosper, for the 
next word is, ''So shall thy barns be filled with 
plenty. *' The friend who first called my atten- 
tion to this command, said that the setting apart 
first-fruits — making a proportion for God's work 
2, first charge upon the income — always seemed to 
bring a blessing on the rest, and that since this 
had been systematically done, it actually seemed 
to go farther than when not thus lessened. 

Presenting our first-fruits should be a peculiarly 
delightful act, as they are themselves the emblem 
of our consecrated relationship to God. For of 
His own will begat He us by the word of truth, 
that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His 
creatures. How sweet and hallowed and richly 
emblematic our little acts of obedience in this 
matter become, when we throw this light upon 



OUR Sir^VER AND GOI.D KEPT FOR JESUS. Ill 

them ! And how blessedly they may remind us 
of the heavenly company, singing, as it were, a 
new song before the throne ; for they are the first- 
fruits unto God and to the Lamb. 

Perhaps we shall find no better plan of detailed 
and systematic setting apart than the New Testa- 
ment one : '' Upon the first day of the week let 
every one of you lay by him in store^ as God hath 
prospered him.'^ The very act of literally fulfill- 
ing this apostolic command seem.s to bring a 
blessing with it, as all simple obedience does. I 
wish, dear friends, you would try it! You will 
find it a sweet reminder on His own day of this 
part of your consecration. You will find it an 
immense help in making the most of your little 
charities. The regular inflow will guide the out- 
flow and ensure your always having something for 
any sudden call for your Master's poor or your 
Master's cause. Do not say you are ^^ afraid you 
could not keep to it." What has a consecrated 
life to do with being ^^ afraid?" Some of us 
could tell of such sweet and singular lessons of 
trust in this matter, that they are written in golden 
letters of love on our memories. Of course there 
will be trials of our faith in this, as well as in 



112 K^FT i^OR l^HE MASTE^R'S USEJ. 

everything else. But every trial of our faith is 
but a trial of His faithfulness, and is ^^much more 
precious than gold which perisheth. ' ' 

^'What about self-denial?" some reader will 
say. Consecration does not supersede this, but 
transfigures it. Literally, a consecrated life is 
and must be a life of denial of self. But all the 
effort and pain of it is changed into very delight. 
We love our Master ; we know, surely and abso- 
lutely, that He is listening and watching our every 
word and way, and that He has called us to the 
privilege of walking ^' worthy of the Lord unto 
all pleasing. ' ' And in so far as this is a reality to 
us, the identical things which are still SQlf-dem'a/ 
in one sense, become actual self-de/ig/i^ in another. 
It may be self-denial to us to turn away from 
something within reach of our purse which it 
would be very convenient or pleasant to possess. 
But if the Master lifted the veil, and revealed 
Himself standing at our side, and let us hear His 
audible voice asking us to reserve the price of it 
for His treasury, should we talk about self-denial 
then ? Should we not be utterly ashamed to 
think of it? or rather, should we, for one instant, 
think about self or self-denial at all ? Would it 



OUR SII^VER AND GOI.D KEPT FOR JESUS. II3 

not be an unimaginable joy to do what He asked 
us to do with that money ? But as long as His 
own unchangeable promise stands written in His 
word for us, **Lo, I am with you alway^^^ we 
may be sure that He is with us, and that His eye 
is as certainly on our opened or half-opened purse 
as it was on the treasury, when He sat over against 
it and saw the two mites cast in. So let us do 
our shopping *^as seeing Him who is invisi- 
ble/' 

It is important to remember that there is no 
much or little in God's sight, except as relatively 
to our means and willingness. " For if there be 
first a willing mind, it is accepted according to 
that a man hath, and not according to that he 
hath not. ' ' He knows what we have not^ as well 
as what we have. He knows all about the low 
wages in one sphere, and the small allowance, or 
the fixed income with rising prices in another. 
And it is not a question of paying to God what 
can be screwed out of these, but of giving Him 
all, and then holding all at His disposal, and 
taking His orders about the disposal of all. 

But I do not see at all how self-indulgence and 
needless extravagance can possibly co-exist with 
8 



114 KKPT I^OR "Tim MASTER'S USE. 

true consecration. If we really never do go 
without anything for the Lord's sake, but just 
because He has graciously given us means, always 
supply for ourselves not only every need, but 
^' every notion/' I think it is high time we looked 
into the matter before God. Why should only 
those who have limited means have the privilege 
of offering to their Lord that which has really 
cost them something to offer? Observe, it is not 
merely going without something we would natur- 
ally like to have or do, but going without it for 
Jesus' sake. Not, '' I will go without it, because, 
after all, I can't very well afford it; " or, ^^ be- 
cause I really ought to subscribe to so and so ; ' ' 
or, ^* because I dare say I shall be glad I have not 
spent the money;" but '^Iwill do without it, be- 
cause I do want to do a little more for Him who 
so loves me — just that much more than I could do 
if I did this other thing." I fancy this is more 
often the heart -language of those who have to cut 
and contrive, than of those who are able to give 
liberally without any cutting and contriving at 
all. The very abundance of God's good gifts 
too often hinders from the privilege and delight 
of really doing without something superfluous or 



OUR SIIyVER AND GOI,D KEPT FOR JKSUS. Il5 

comfortable or usual, that they may give just that 
much more to their Lord. What a pity ! 

The following quotation may (I hope it will) 
touch some conscience : ^^ A gentleman once told 
us that his wine-bill was ;^ioo a year — more than 
enough to keep a Scripture reader always at work 
in some populous district. And it is one of the 
countless advantages of total abstinence that it at 
once sets free a certain amount of money for such 
work. Smoking, too, is a habit not only injurious 
to the health in a vast majority of cases, and, to 
our mind, very unbecoming in a ^ temple of the 
Holy Ghost,' but also one which squanders money 
which might be used for the Lord. Expenses in 
dress might in most people be curtailed ; expen- 
sive tastes should be denied ; and simplicity in 
all habits of life should be a mark of the followers 
of Him who had not where to lay His head.'' 

And again : '' The self-indulgence of wealthy 
Christians, who might largely support the Lord's 
work with what they lavish upon their houses, 
their tables, or their personal expenditure, is very 
sad to see." * 

* Christian Progress, vol. iii., pp. 25, 26, 



ii6 KEPT i^oR "run master's us^. 

Here the question of jewelry seems to come in. 
Perhaps it was an instance of the gradual showing 
of the details of consecration, illustrated on page 
29, but I will confess that when I wrote, ^^Take 
my silver and my gold,'' it never dawned on me 
that anything was included beyond the coin of 
the realm! But the Lord ^^ leads on softly,'* 
and a good many of us have been shown some 
capital bits of unenclosed, but easily enclosable 
ground, which have yielded ^^ pleasant fruit." 
Yes, very pleasant fruit ! It is wonderfully nice 
to light upon something that we really never 
thought of as a possible gift to our Lord, and just 
to give it, straight away to Him. I do not press 
the matter, but I do ask my lady friends to give 
it fair and candid and prayerful consideration. 
Which do you really care most about — a diamond 
on your finger, or a star in the Redeemer's king- 
dom, shining for ever and ever ? That is what it 
comes to, and there I leave it. 

On the other hand, it is very possible to be 
fairly faithful in much, and yet unfaithful in that 
which is least. We may have thought about our 
gold and silver, and yet have been altogether 
thoughtless about our rubbish ! Some have a 



OUR SIIvVKR AND GOI<D KEPT I^OR JESUS. II7 

habit of hoarding away old garments, '^pieces/' 
remnants, and odds and ends generally, under the 
idea that they '' will come in useful some day ; '* 
very likely setting it up as a kind of mild virtue, 
backed by that noxious old saying, ^^Keep it by 
you seven years, and you'll find a use for it." 
And so the shabby things get shabbier, and moth 
and dust doth corrupt, and the drawers and 
places get choked and crowded ; and meanwhile 
all this, that is sheer rubbish to you, might be 
made useful at once, to a degree beyond what 
you would guess, to some poor person. 

It would be a nice variety for the clever fingers 
of a lady's maid to be set to work to do up old 
things j or some tidy woman may be found in 
almost every locality who knows how to contrive 
children's things out of what seems to you only 
fit for the rag-bag, either for her own little ones 
or those of her neighbors. 

My sister trimmed seventy or eighty hats every 
spring, for several years, with the contents of 
friends' rubbish drawers, thus relieving dozens 
of poor mothers who liked their children to 
''go tidy on Sunday," and also keeping down 
finery in her Sunday-school. Those who literally 



ii8 KEjPT FOR the; maste;r's usk. 

fulfilled her request for ^^ rubbish '* used to marvel 
at the results. 

Little scraps of carpet, torn old curtains, faded 
blinds, and all such gear go a wonderfully long 
way towards making poor cottagers and old or 
sick people comfortable. I never saw anything in 
this ^^ rubbish '' line yet that could not be turned 
to good account somehow, with a little considering 
of the poor and their discomforts. 

I wish my lady reader would just leave this 
book now, and go straight up-stairs and have a 
good rummage at once, and see what can be thus 
cleared out. If she does not know the right 
recipients at first hand, let her send it off to 
the nearest working clergyman's wife, and see 
how gratefully it will be received ! For it is a 
great trial to workers among the poor not to be 
able to supply the needs they see. Such supplies 
are far more useful than treble their small money 
value. 

Just a word of earnest pleading for needs, 
closely veiled, but very sore, which might be 
wonderfully lightened if this wardrobe overhaul- 
ing were systematic and faithful. There are 
hundreds of poor clergymen's families to whom a 



A 



OUR SIIvVER AND GOI^D K^PT FOR JKSUS. II9 

few old garments or any household oddments are 
as great a charity as to any of the poor under 
their charge. There are two Societies for aiding 
these with such gifts, under initials which are ex- 
plained in the Reports : the P. P. C. Society — 
Secretary, Miss Breay, Battenhall Place, Worces- 
ter j and the A. F. D. Society — Secretary, Miss 
Hinton, 4 York Place, Clifton. I only ask my 
lady friends to send for a report to either of these 
devoted secretaries; and if their hearts are not so 
touched by the cases of brave and bitter need 
that they go forthwith to wardrobes and drawers 
to see what can be spared and sent, they are 
colder and harder than I give English women 
credit for. 

There is no bondage in consecration. The 
two things are opposites, and can not co-exist, 
much less mingle. We should suspect our conse- 
cration, and come afresh to our great Counsellor 
about it, directly we have any sense of bondage. 
As long as we have an unacknowledged feeling of 
fidget about our account-book, and a smothered 
wondering what and how much we ^^ ought ^"^ to 
give, and the hushed-up wishing the thing had 
not been put quite so strongly before us, depend 



I20 ke;pt i^or the master's use. 

upon it we have not said unreservedly, " Take my 
silver and my gold.'' And how can the Lord 
keep what He has not been sincerely asked to 
take? 

Ah ! if we had stood at the foot of the Cross 
and watched the tremendous payment of our re- 
demption with the precious blood of Christ — if 
we had seen that awful price told out, drop by 
drop, from His own dear, patient brow and 
torn hands and feet till it was ALL paid, and 
the central word of eternity was uttered, ^^ It ts 
finished r^ should we not have been ready to 
say, ^' Not a mite will I withhold I"* ^ 

MY JEWELS. 

** Shall I hold them back — my jewels ? 

Time has traveled many a day 
Since I laid them by forever, 

Safely locking them away ; 
And I thought them yielded wholly, 

When I dared no longer wear 
Gems contrasting, oh, so sadly ! 

With the adorning I would bear. 

" Shall I keep them still — my jewels? 
Shall I, can I, yet withhold 



OUR SIIyVER AND GOIvD J^l^FT FOR JE;SUS. 121 

From that living, loving Saviour 

Aught of silver or of gold ? 
Gold so needed, that His gospel 

May resound from sea to sea ; 
Can I know Christ's service lacketh 

Yet forget His ^ unto Me ? ' 

" No ; I lay them down — my jewels, 
Truly on the altar now. 
Stay ! I see a vision passing 
Of a gem-encircled brow. 
Heavenly treasure worn by Jesus, 

Souls won through my gift outpoured ; 
Freely, gladly I will offer 

Jewels thus to crown my Lord." 

— From Woman^s Work, 



122 ke;pt for the; master's use;. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

OUR INTELLECTS KEPT FOR JESUS. 

*^ Keep my intellect, and use 

Every power as Thou shalt choose." 

THERE are two distinct sets of temptation 
which assail those who have, or think they 
have, rather less, and those who have, or 
think the have, rather more than an average share 
of intellect ; while those who have neither less nor 
more are generally open in some degree to both. 
The refuge and very present help from both is 
the same. The intellect, whether great or small, 
which is committed to the Lord's keeping, will be 
kept and will be used by Him. 

The former class are tempted to think them- 
selves excused from effort to cultivate and use 
their small intellectual gifts ; to suppose they can 
not or need not seek to win souls, because they 
are not so clever and apt in speech as So-and-so ; 
to attribute to want of gift what is really want of 
grace ; to hide the one talent because it is not 



OUR INTKl.I.I^C'rS KKPX FOR JKSUS. I23 

five. Let me throw out a thought or two for 
these. 

Which is greatest, gifts or grace? Gifts are 
given '' to every man according to his several 
ability. '^ That is, we have just as much given as 
God knows we are able to use and what He knows 
we can best use for Him. " But unto every one 
of us is given grace according to the measure of 
the gift of Christ.'* Claiming and using that 
royal measure of grace, you may, and can and 
will do more for God than the mightiest intellect 
in the world without it. For which, in the clear 
light of His Word, is likely to be most effectual 
the natural ability which at its best and fullest, 
without Christ, ^^can do nothhig,^^ (observe 
and believe that word !), or the grace of our 
Almighty God and the power of the Holy Ghost, 
which is as free to you as it ever was to any one ? 

If you are responsible for making use of your 
limited gift, are you not equally responsible for 
making use of the grace and power which are to 
be had for the asking, which are already yours in 
Christ, and which are not limited ? 

Also, do you not see that when there are great 
natural gifts, people give the credit to them, 



124 ke:px i^or the; mast:^r's use;. 

instead of to the grace which alone did the real 
work, and thus God is defrauded of the glory ? 
So that, to say it reverently, God can get more 
glory out of a feeble instrument, because then it is 
more obvious that the excellency of the power is 
of God and not of us. Will you not henceforth 
say, ^ ' Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory 
in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may 
rest upon me ? " 

Don't you really believe that the Holy Spirit is 
just as able to draw a soul to Jesus, if He will, by 
your whisper of the one word ^' Come,''^ as by an 
eloquent sermon an hour long ? / do ! At the 
same time, as it is evidently God's way to work 
through these intellects of ours, we have no more 
right to expect Him to use a mind which we are 
wilfully neglecting, and taking no pains whatever 
to fit for His use, than I should have to expect 
you to write a beautiful inscription with my pen, 
if I would not take the trouble to wipe it and 
mend it. 

The latter class are tempted to rely on their 
natural gifts, and to act and speak in their own 
strength ; to go on too fast, without really looking 
up at every step, and for every word ; to spend 



OUR INTKl^IvEiCTS KEPT FOR JKSUS. 1 25 

their Lord's time in polishing up their intellects, 
nominally for the sake of influence and power, 
and so forth, while really, down at the bottom, 
it is for the sake of the keen enjoyment of the 
process ; and perhaps, most of all, to spend the 
strength of these intellects '' for that which doth 
not profit," in yielding to the specious snare of 
reading clever books *' on both sides," and eat- 
ing deliberately of the tree of the knowledge of 
good and eviL 

The mere mention of these temptations should 
be sufficient appeal to conscience. If consecra- 
tion is to be a reality anywhere, should it not be 
in the very thing which you own as an extra gift 
from God, and which is evidently closest, so to 
speak, to His direct action, spirit upon spirit ? 
And if the very strength of your intellect has 
been your weakness, will you not entreat Him to 
keep it henceforth really and entirely for Himself? 
It is so good of Him to have given you something 
to lay at His feet ; shall not this goodness lead 
you to lay it all there, and never hanker after 
taking it back for yourself or the world ? Do 
you not feel that in very proportion to the gift 
you need the special keeping of it? He may 



126 KEPT ^OR THK MAS'TKR'S USE. 

lead you by a way you know not in the matter ; 
very likely He will show you that you must be 
willing to be a fool for His sake first, before He 
will condescend to use you much for His glory. 
Will you look up into His face and say, '^ Not 
willing? " 

He who made every power can use every power 
— memory, judgment, imagination, quickness of 
apprehension or insight; specialties of musical, 
poetical, oratorical, or artistic faculty; special 
tastes for reasoning, philosophy, history, natural 
science, or natural history, — all these may be 
dedicated to Him, sanctified by Him, and used 
by Him. Whatever He has given. He will use if 
we will let Him. Often, in the most unexpected 
ways, and at the most unexpected turns, some- 
thing read or acquired long ago suddenly comes 
into use. We cannot foresee what will thus 
^^come in useful;" but He knew, when He 
guided us to learn it, what it would be wanted 
for in His service. So may we not ask Him to 
bring His perfect foreknowledge to bear on all 
our mental training and storing ? to guide us to 
read or study exactly what He knows there will 



OUR INTEI.I.KCTS KE:pT F^OR JKSUS. 1 27 

be use for in the work to which He has called or 
will call us ? 

Nothing is more practically perplexing to a 
young Christian, whose preparation-time is not 
quite over, or perhaps painfully limited, than to 
know what is most worth studying, what is really 
the best investment of the golden hours, while yet 
the time is not come for the field of active work 
to be fully entered, and the ^^ thoroughly furnish- 
ing'* of the mind is the evident path of present 
duty. Is not His name called ^'Counsellor?" 
and will He not be faithful to the promise of His 
name in this, as well as in all else ? 

The same applies to every subsequent stage. 
Only let us be perfectly clear about the principle 
that our intellect is not our own, either to culti- 
vate, or to use, or to enjoy, and that Jesus Christ 
is our real and ever-present Counsellor, and then 
there will be no more worry about what to read 
and how much to read, and whether to keep up 
one's accomplishments, or one's languages, or 
one's '' ologies !'^ If the Master has need of 
them. He will show us ; and if He has not, what 
need have we of them ? If we go forward with- 
out His leading, we may throw away some talent, 



128 KKPT If OR I'HK MASTER'S USE. 

or let it get too rusty for use, which would have 
been most valuable when other circumstances 
arose or different work was given. We must not 
think that *^ keeping" means not using at all ! 
What we want is to have all our powers kept for 
His use. 

In this they will probably find far higher de- 
velopment than in any other sort of use. I know 
cases in which the effect of real consecration on 
mere mental development has been obvious and 
surprising to all round. Yet it is only a confir- 
mation of what I believe to be a great principle, 
viz., that the Lord makes the most of whatever is 
unreservedly surrendered to Him, There will 
always be plenty of waste in what we try to cut 
out for ourselves. But He wastes no material ! 



OUR WII,I,S KEPT FOR JESUS. 1 29 

CHAPTER IX. 

OUR WILLS KEPT FOR JESUS. 

" Keep my will, oh, keep it Thine, 
For it is no longer mine." 

PERHAPS there is no point in which ex- 
pectation has been so limited by experience 
as this. We believe God is able to do for 
us just so much as He has already done, and no 
more. We take it for granted a line must be 
drawn somewhere ; and so we choose to draw it 
where experience ends, and faith would have to 
begin. Even if we have trusted and proved Him 
as to keeping our members and our minds, faith 
fails when we would go deeper and say, ^^Keep 
my will! '' And yet the only reason we have to 
give is, that though we have asked Him to take 
our will, we do not exactly find that it is alto- 
gether His, but that self-will crops up again and 
again. And whatever flaw there might be in this 
argument, we think the matter is quite settled by 
the fact that some whom we rightly esteem, and 
9 



130 K^PT li^oR TH^ maste;r's us^. 

who are far better than ourselves, have the same 
experience, and do not even seem to think it 
right to hope for anything better. That is 
conclusive ! And the result of this, as of every 
other faithless conclusion, is either discourage- 
ment and depression, or, still worse, acquiescence 
in an unyielded will, as something that can't be 
helped. 

Now let us turn from our thoughts to God's 
thoughts. Verily, they are not as ours ! He 
says He is able to do exceeding abundantly above 
all that we ask or think. Apply this here. We 
ask Him to take our wills and make them His. 
Does He or does He not mean what He says ? 
and if He does, should we not trust Him to do 
this thing that we have asked and longed for, and 
not less, but more ? ' ' Is anything too hard for 
the Lord? '' " Hath He said, and shall He not 
do it ? " and if He gives us faith to believe that 
we have the petition that we desired of Him, 
and with it the unspeakable rest of leaning our 
will wholly upon His love, what ground have 
we for imagining that this is necessarily to be a 
mere fleeting shadow, which is hardly to last an 
hour, but is necessarily to be exhausted ere the 



OUR WII,I^ KEPT FOR JESUS. 131 

next breath of trial or temptation comes ? Does 
He mock our longing by acting as I have seen an 
older person act to a child, by accepting some 
ni^mggrft of no intrinsic value, just to pleaseX 
little one, and then throwing it awav i 
the child's attention is divfrt'dTY.Tth: 
taking rather the pledge of the keeping ifTe wm 
but entrust Hnn fearlessly with it? WZhI 

fu fill the conduion of reception, believing it. 

fear ofT ' """' '^'^^^ "^^^^^^ ^" *' we 
hear of the unsatisfactory experience of others! 

Or start from another word. Job said, " I know 

onn/ ." ''"'' ^' everything," and we turn 
round and say, •< Oh yes, everything excep, keeo 
jngmywilir. Dare we ad'd, 4nd1\tw 

s sa^d e" ""5 ""' '" ''''''" ^'' ^^^t --hat 
IS said every day, only in other words; and if 

not sa,d , oud, it is said in faithless hearts, and 

God hears it. What ^oes " Almighty " mein if 

xt do not ^ean as we teach our littL childr;n 

aoie to do everything?'' 

We have asked this' great thing many a time 
without, perhaps, realizing how great a petition 



132 KKPT FOR 'THE) MASTER'S USK. 

we were singing in the old morning hymn, 
^^ Guard my first springs of thought and will ! ^' 
That goes to the root of the matter, only it im- 
plies that the will has been already surrendered 
to Him, that it may be wholly kept and guarded. 
It may be that we have not sufficiently realized 
the sin of the only alternative. Our wills belong 
either to self or to God. It may seem a small 
and rather excusable sin in man's sight to be self- 
willed, but see in what a category of iniquity 
God puts it! (2 Pet. ii. 10.) And certainly we 
are without excuse when we have such a promise 
to go upon as, ^^It is God that worketh in you 
both to will and to do of his pleasure.*' How 
splendidly this meets our very deepest helpless- 
ness, — ^'worketh in you to will!^^ Oh, let us 
pray for ourselves and for each other, that we 
may know ^^what is the exceeding greatness of 
His power to us ward who believe. '* It does not 
say ^'to usward who fear and doubt;" for if we 
will not believe, neither shall we be established. 
If we will not believe what God says He can do, 
we shall see it with our eyes, but we shall not eat 
thereof. ^^ They could not enter in because of 
unbelief. ' ' 



OUR Wllyl^S KEPT FOR JKSUS. 133 

It is most comforting to remember that the 
grand promise, '* Thy people shall be wilHng in 
the day of Thy power/' is made by the Father 
to Christ Himself. The Lord Jesus holds this 
promise, and God will fulfill it to Him. He 
will make us willing because He has promised 
Jesus that He will do so. And what is being 
made willing, but having our will taken and 
kept? 

All true surrender of the will is based upon 
love and knowledge of, and confidence in, the 
one to whom it is surrendered. We have the 
human analogy so often before our eyes that it is 
the more strange we should be so slow to own 
even the possibility of it as to God. Is it 
thought anything so very extraordinary and high- 
flown, when a bride deliberately prefers wearing 
a color which was not her own taste or choice, 
because her husband likes to see her in it ? Is it 
very unnatural that it is no distress to her to do 
what he asks her to do, or to go with him where 
he asks her to come, even without question or 
explanation, instead of doing what or going 
where she would undoubtedly have preferred if 
she did not know and love him ? Is it very sur- 



134 KKPT FOR THK master's USE. 

prising if this lasts beyond the wedding-day, and 
if, year after year, she still finds it her greatest 
pleasure to please him, quite irrespective of what 
used to be her own ways and likings ? Yet in 
this case she is not helped by any promise or 
power on his part to make her wish what he 
wishes. But He who so wonderfully condescends 
to call Himself the Bridegroom of His church, 
and who claims our fullest love and trust, has 
promised and has power to work in us to will. 
Shall we not claim His promise and rely on His 
mighty power, and say, not self-confidently, but 
looking only unto Jesus — 

** Keep my will, for it is Thine ; 
It shall be no longer mine ! " 

Only in proportion as our own will is sur- 
rendered, are we able to discern the splendor of 
God's will. 

For oh ! it is a splendor, 

A glow of majesty, 
A mystery of beauty, 

If we will only see ; 
A very cloud of glory 

Enfolding you and me. 



OUR WII^I^S KEPT ]?0R JKSUS. I35 

A splendor that is lighted 

At one transcendent flame, 
The wondrous Love, the perfect Love, 

Our Father's sweetest name ; 
For His Name and very Essence 

And His Will are all the same ! 

Conversely in proportion as we see this splendor 
of His will, we shall more readily or more fully 
surrender our own. Not until we have presented 
our bodies a living sacrifice can we prove what is 
that good, and perfect, and acceptable will of 
God. But in thus proving it this continual 
presentation will be more and more seen to be 
our reasonable service, and becomes more and 
more a joyful sacrifice of praise. 

The connection in Romans xii. i, 2, between 
our sacrifice which He so graciously calls accept- 
able to Himself, and our finding out that His will 
is acceptable to ourselves, is very striking. One 
reason for this connection may be that only love 
can really understand love, and love on both 
sides is at the bottom of the whole transaction 
and its results. First, He loves us. Then the 
discovery of this leads us to love Him. Then, 
because He loves us, He claims us, and desires to 



136 KEPT FOR THE master's USE. 

have us wholly yielded to His will, so that the 
operations of love in and for us, may find no 
hindrance. Then, because we love Him, we 
recognize His claim and yield ourselves. Then, 
being thus yielded. He draws us nearer to Him,''^ 
and admits us, so to speak, into closer intimacy 
so that we gain nearer and truer views of His 
perfections. Then the unity of these perfec- 
tions becomes clearer to us. Now we not only 
see His justice and mercy flowing in undivided 
stream from the cross of Christ, but we see that 
they never were divided, though the strange dis- 
tortions of the dark, false glass of sin made them 
appear so, but that both are but emanations of 
God's holy love. Then having known and 
believed this holy love, we see further that His 
will is not a separate thing, but only love (and 
therefore all His attributes) in action ; love being 
the primary essence of His being, and all the 
other attributes, manifestations and combinations 
of that ineffable essence, for God is Love. Then 
this will of God, which has seemed in old far-off 

* " Now ye have consecrated yourselves unto the Lord, 
come near^'' (2 Chron. xxix. 31). 



OUR wii^ivS ke:pt for jksus. 137 

days a stern and fateful power, is seen to be only 
love energized ; love saying, ^ ^ I will. " And when 
once we really grasp this (hardly so much by 
faith as by love itself), the will of God cannot be 
otherwise than acceptable, for it is no longer a 
question of trusting that somehow or other there 
is a hidden element of love in it, but of under- 
standing that it zs love ; no more to be disso- 
ciated from it than the power of the sun's rays 
can be dissociated from their light and warmth. 
And love recognized must surely be love accepted 
and reciprocated. So, as the fancied sternness of 
God's will is lost in His love, the stubbornness of 
our will becomes melted in that love, and lost in 
our acceptance of it. 

" Take Thine own way with me, dear Lord, 
Thou canst not otherwise than bless ; 
I launch me forth upon a sea 

Of boundless love and tenderness. 

** I could not choose a larger bliss 

Than to be wholly Thine ; and mine 
A will whose highest joy is this 
To ceaselessly unclasp in Thine. 

" I will not fear Thee, O my God ! 
The days to come can only bring 



138 KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 

Their perfect sequences of love, 
Thy larger, deeper comforting. 

" Within the shadow of this love, 

Loss doth transmute itself to gain ; 
Faith veils earth's sorrows in its light, 
And straightway lives above her pain, 

" We are not losers thus ; we share 
The perfect gladness of the Son, 
Not conquered — for, behold, we reign ; 
Conquered and Conqueror are one. 

" Thy wonderful grand will, my God ! 
Triumphantly I make it mine ; 
And faith shall breathe her glad * Amen ' 
To every dear command of Thine. 

*' Beneath the splendor of Thy choice, 
Thy perfect choice for me, I rest ; 
Outside it now I dare not live, 
Within it I must needs be blest. 

" Meanwhile my spirit anchors calm 
In grander regions still than this ; 
The fair, far-shining latitudes 
Of that yet unexplored bliss. 

" Then may Thy perfect, glorious will 
Be evermore fulfilled in me. 
And make my life an answ'ring chord 
Of glad, responsive harmony. 



OUR WII,I,S KEPT FOR JESUS. 1 39 

" Oh ! it is life indeed to live 

Within this kingdom strangely sweet ; 
And yet we fear to enter in, 
And linger with unwilling feet. 

" We fear this wondrous rule of Thine, 

Because we have not reached Thy heart ; 
Not venturing our all on Thee, 

We may not know how good Thou art.'' 

Jean Sophia Pigott. 



140 ke:pt for the: maste:r*s us^. 

CHAPTER X. 

OUR HEARTS KEPT FOR JESUS. 

" Keep my heart; it is Thine own; 
It is now Thy royal throne." 

^^ TT is a good thing that the heart be established 
1 with grace/' and yet some of us go on as if 
it were not a good thing even to hope for 
it to be so. 

We should be ashamed to say that we had be- 
haved treacherously to a friend; that we had 
played him false again and again ; that we had 
said scores of times what we did not really mean; 
that we had professed and promised what, all the 
while, we had no sort of purpose of performing. 
We should be ready to go off by next ship to New 
Zealand rather than calmly own to all this, or 
rather than ever face our friends again after we 
had owned it. And yet we are not ashamed 
(some of us) to say that we are always dealing 
treacherously with our Lord ; nay, more, we own 
it with an inexplicable complacency, as if there 



OUR HEARTS KEPT FOR JESUS. I4I 

were a kind of virtue in saying how fickle and 
faithless and desperately wicked our hearts are ; 
and we actually plume ourselves on the easy con- 
fession, which we think proves our humility, and 
which does not lower us in the eyes of others, nor 
in our own eyes, half so much as if we had to say, 
*'I have told a story," or, ^^ I have broken my 
promise. ' ' Nay, more, we have not the slightest 
hope, and therefore not the smallest intention of 
aiming at an utterly different state of things. 
Well for us if we do not go a step farther, and 
call those by hard and false names who do seek 
to have an established heart, and who believe 
that as the Lord meant what He said when He 
promised, ''No good thing will He withhold 
from them that walk uprightly," so He will not 
withhold this good thing. 

Prayer must be based upon promise, but, thank 
God, His promises are always broader than our 
prayers. No fear of building inverted pyramids 
here, for Jesus Christ is the foundation, and 
this and all the other *' promises of God in 
Him are yea and in Him amen, unto the glory of 
God by us." So it shall be unto His glory to 
fulfill this one to us, and to answer our prayer for 



142 KKPT FOR THK MASTER'S VSH, 

a ^'kept" or ^^established" heart. And its ful- 
fillment shall work out His glory, not in spite of 
us, but '' by us." 

We find both the means and the result of the 
keeping in the 1 1 2th Psalm : '*• His heart is fixed. ' ' 
Whose heart? An angel? A saint in glory? 
No ! Simply the heart of the man that feareth 
the Lord, and delighteth greatly in His command- 
ments. Therefore yours and mine, as God would 
have them be ; just the normal idea of a God- 
fearing heart, nothing extremely and hopelessly 
beyond attainment. 

^^ Fixed.'* How does that tally with the de- 
ceitfulness and waywardness and fickleness about 
which we really talk as if we were rather proud 
of them than utterly ashamed of them ? 

Does our heavenly Bridegroom expect nothing 
more of us? Does His mighty, all-constraining 
love intend to do no more for us than to leave us 
in this deplorable state, when He is undoubtedly 
able to heal the desperately wicked heart (com- 
pare verses 9 and 14 of Jeremiah xvii.), to rule 
the wayward one with His peace, and to establish 
the fickle one with His grace? Are we not 
^'without excuse? '* 



OUR HEARTS KEPT FOR JESUS. 1 43 

'^ Fixed, trusting in the Lord/' Here is the 
means of the fixing — trust. He works the trust 
in us by sending the Holy Spirit to reveal God in 
Christ to us as absolutely, infinitely worthy of our 
trust. When we ^' see Jesus " by spirit- wrought 
faith, we can not but trust Him j we distrust our 
hearts more truly than ever before, but we trust 
our Lord entirely, because we trust Him only. 
For, entrusting our trust to Him, we know that 
He is able to keep that which we commit (/. e,, 
entrust) to Him. It is His own way of winning 
and fixing our hearts for Himself. Is it not 
a beautiful one? Thus "" his heart is established." 
But we have not quite faith enough to believe 
that. So what is the very first doubting, and 
therefore sad thought that crops up ? ** Yes, but 
I am afraid it will not remain fixed." 

That is your thought. Now see what is God's 
thought about the case. ^' His heart is estabhshed, 
he shall not be afraid.'* 

Is not that enough ? What is, if such plain 
and yet divine words are not ? Well, the Gracious 
One bears with us, and gives line upon line to 
His poor little children. And so He says, " The 
peace of God which passeth all understanding, 



144 KEPT I^OR THE master's USE. 

shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ 
Jesus.'* And again, '^ Thy thoughts shall be 
established/' And again, '^ Thou wilt keep him 
in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, 
because he trusteth in Thee." 

And to prove to us that these promises can be 
realized in present experience. He sends down to 
us through nearly 3,000 years the words of the 
man who prayed, ^^ Create in me a clean heart, O 
God,'' and let us hear twice over the new song 
put by the same Holy Spirit into his mouth : ^^ My 
heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed " (Ps. 
Ivii. 7, cviii. i). 

The heart that is established in Christ is also 
established for Christ. It becomes His royal 
throne, no longer occupied by His foe, no longer 
tottering and unstable. And then we see the 
beauty and preciousness of the promise, '' He 
shall be a Priest upon His throne." Not only 
reigning, but atoning. Not only ruling, but 
cleansing. Thus the throne is established '^in 
mercy," but ^^ by righteousness." 

I think we lose ground sometimes by parleying 
with the tempter. We have no business to parley 
with an usurper. The throne is no longer his 



OUR HEARTS KEPT I^OR JESUS. 



'45 



when we have surrendered it to our Lord Jesus. 
And why should we allow him to argue with us 
for one instant, as if it were still an open ques- 
tion? Don't listen; simply tell him that Jesus 
Christ is on the long-disputed throne, and no 
more about it, but turn at once to your King and 
claim the glorious protection of His sovereignty 
over you. It is a splendid reality, and you will 
find it so. He will not abdicate and leave you 
kingless and defenceless. For verily, "The Lord 
is our King; he will save us'' (Isa. xxxiii. 22). 



Our hearh 


• are naturally — 


God can make them-^ 


Evil . . . 


Heb. iii. 12 


Clean . . 


. Ps. li. 10 


Desperately 








wicked 


Jer. xvii. 9 


Good . . 


. Luke viii. 15 


Weak . . 


Ezek. xvi. 30 


Fixed . . 


. Ps. cxii. 7 


Deceitful 


. Jer. xvii. 9 


Faithful . 


. Neh. ix. 8 


Deceived 


. Isa. xliv. 20 


Understand- 








ing . . 


. I Kings iii. 9 


Double . . 


Ps. xii. 2 


Honest . 


. Luke viii. 15 


Impenitent 


Rom. ii. 5 


Contrite . 


. Ps. li. 17 


Rebellious 


Jer. V. 23 


True . . 


. Heb. X. 22 


Hard . . 


Ezek. iii. 7 


Soft . . 


Job xxiii. 16 


Stony . . . 


Ezek. xi. 19 


New . . 


Ezek. xviii. 32 


Frovirard . 


Prov. xvii. 20 


Sound . . 


. Ps. cxix. 80 


Despiteful 


Ezek. XXV. 15 


Glad . . . 


Ps. xvi. 9 


Stout . . . 


Isa. X. 12 


Established 


Ps. cxii. 8 


Haughty 


Prov. xviii. 12 


Tender . , 


Ephes. iv. 32 


Proud , . 


Prov. xxi. 4 


Pure . . 


Matt. V. 8 


Perverse . , 


Prov. xii. 8 


Perfect . . 


I Chron. xxix. 9 


Foolish . . 


Rom. i. 21 


Wise . . , 


Prov. xi. 20 



146 K^PT FOR THK MASTER'S USE. 

CHAPTER XI. 

OUR LOVE KEPT FOR JESUS. 

'* Keep my love ; my Lord, I pour 
At Thy feet its treasure-store." 

NOT as a mere echo from the morning-gilded 
shore of Tiberias, but as an ever-new, ever- 
sounding note of divinest power come the 
familiar words to each of us, '' Lovest thou Me ? '* 
He says it who has loved us with an everlasting 
love. He says it who has died for us. He says 
it who has washed us from our sins in His own 
blood. He says it who has waited for our love, 
waited patiently all through our coldness. 

And if by His grace we have said, '^ Take my 
love,*' which of us has not felt that part of His 
very answer has been to make us see how little 
there was to take, and how little of that little has 
been kept for Him ? And yet we do love Him ! 
He knows that ! The very mourning and longing 
to love Him proves it. But we want more than 
that, and so does our Lord. 



OUR I.OVE KKPl' I^OR JESUS. 147 

He has created us to love. We have a sealed 
treasure of love, which either remains sealed, and 
then gradually dries up and wastes away, or is un- 
sealed and poured out, and yet is the fuller and 
not the emptier for the outpouring. The more 
love we give, the more we have to give. So far 
it is only natural. But when the Holy Spirit 
reveals the love of Christ, and sheds abroad the 
love of God in our hearts, this natural love is 
penetrated with a new principle, as it discovers a 
new Object. Everything that it beholds in that 
Object gives it new depth and new colors. As it 
sees the holiness, the beauty, and the glory, it 
takes the deep hues of conscious sinfulness, un- 
worthiness, and nothingness. As it sees even a 
glimpse of the love that passe th knowledge, it 
takes the glow of wonder and gratitude. And 
when it sees that love drawing close to its deepest 
need with blood-purchased pardon, it is in- 
tensified and stirred, and there is no more time 
for weighing and measuring; we most pour it 
out, all there is of it, with our tears, at the feet 
that were pierced for the love of us. 

And what then ? Has the flow grown gradually 
slower and shallower? Has our Lord reason to say, 



148 KEJPT FOR "run master's USB. 

" My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, 
and as a stream of brooks they pass away ? " It 
is humiliating to have found that we could not 
keep on loving Him as we loved in that remem- 
bered hour when '*Thy time was the time of 
love. ' ' We have proved that we were not able. 
Let this be only the stepping-stone to proving that 
He is able ! 

There will have been a cause, as we shall see if 
we seek it honestly. It was not that we really 
poured out all our treasure, and so it naturally 
came to an end. We let it be secretly diverted 
into other channels. We began keeping back a 
little part of the price for something else. We 
looked away from, instead of looking away unto, 
Jesus. We did not entrust Him with our love, 
and ask Him to keep it for Himself. 

And what has He to say to us ? Ah, He up- 
braideth not. Listen? ^^Thus saith the Lord, 
I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the 
love of thine espousals.' ' Can any words be more 
tender, more touching, to you, to me ? Forget- 
ting all the sin, all the backsliding, all the cold- 
ness, casting all that into the unre turning depths 
of the sea, He says He remembers that hour when 



OUR I.OVE: KEPT FOR JESUS. 149 

we first said, ''Take my love." He remembers 
it now, at this minute. He has written it forever 
on His infinite memory, where the past is as the 
present. 

His own love is unchangeable, so it could never 
be His wish or will that we should thus drift away 
from Him. Oh, ''Come and let us return unto 
the Lord ! ' ' But is there any hope that, thus 
returning, our flickering love may be kept from 
again failing ? Hear what He says : "And I will 
betroth thee unto Me forever." And again; 
" Thou shalt abide for Me many days ; so will I 
also be for thee." Shall we trust His word or 
not? Is it worthy of our acceptance or not? 
Oh, rest on this word of the King, and let Him 
from this day have the keeping of your love, and 
He will keep it ! 

The love of Christ is not an absorbing, but a 
radiating love. The more we love Him, the more 
we shall most certainly love others. Some have 
not much natural power of loving, but the love 
of Christ will strengthen it. Some have had the 
springs of love dried up by some terrible earth- 
quake. They will find ^* fresh springs " in Jesus, 



150 KKPT FOR TH^ MASTER'S USE. 

and the gentle flow will be purer and deeper than 
the old torrent could ever be. Some have been 
satisfied that it should rush in a narrow channel, 
but He will cause it to overflow into many another, 
and widen its course of blessing. Some have 
spent it all on their God-given dear ones. Now 
He is come whose right it is ; and yet in the full- 
est resumption of that right, He is so gracious 
that He puts back an even larger measure of the 
old love into our hand, sanctified with His own 
love, and energized with His blessing, and 
strengthened with His new commandment, '^ That 
ye love one another, as I have loved you.'' 

In that always very interesting part, called a 
^^ Corner for Difficulties, '* of that always very 
interesting magazine, Woman! s Work, the ques- 
tion has been discussed, '' When does love become 
idolatry ? Is it the experience of Christians that 
the coming in of a new object of afl'ection inter- 
feres with entire consecration to God? '' I should 
like to quote the many excellent answers in full, 
but must only refer my readers to the number for 
March, 1879. O^^ replies: ^^ It seems to me 
that He who is love would not give us an object 
for our love unless He saw that our hearts needed 



OUR I^OVE KEPl' FOR JKSUS. 15I 

expansion; and if the love is consecrated, and 
the friendship takes its stand in Christ, there is 
no need for the fear that it will become idolatry. 
Let the love on both sides be given to God to keep, 
and however much it may grow, the source from 
which it springs must yet be greater.'' Perhaps 
I may be pardoned for giving, at the same writer's 
suggestion, a quotation from ^* Under the Sur- 
face" on this subject. Eleanor says to Beatrice: 

" I tremble when I think 
How much I love him; but I turn away 
From thinking of it, just to love him more :— 
Indeed, I fear, too much." 

'* Dear Eleanor, 
Do you love him as much as Christ loves us ? 
Let your lips answer me." 

* * Why ask me, dear ? 
Our hearts are finite, Christ is infinite." 

" Then, till you reach the standard of that love, 
Let neither fears nor well-meant warning voice 
Distress you with * too much.' For He hath said 
How much — and who shall dare to change His measure ? — 
* That ye should love AS I have loved you^ 
O sweet command, that goes so far beyond 
The mightiest impulse of the tenderest heart ! 
A bare permission had been m.uch ; but He 
Who knows our yearnings and our fearfulness 



152 KEPT I^OR THE MASTKR^S USE. 

Chose graciously to bid us do the thing 

That makes our earthly happiness, 

A limit that we need not fear to pass, 

Because we cannot. Oh, the breadth and length, 

And depth and height of love that pAsseth knowledge ; 

Yet Jesus said * As I have loved you.' " 

" O Beatrice, I long to feel the sunshine 
That this should bring ; but there are other words 
Which fall in chill eclipse. 'Tis written, * Keep 
Yourselves from idols.' How shall I obey?" 

* * Oh, not by loving less, but loving more. 
It is not that we love our precious ones 
Too much, but God too little. As the lamp 
A miner bears upon his shadowed brow 
Is only dazzling in the grimy dark, 
And has no glare against the summer sky, 
So, set the tiny torch of our best love 
In the great sunshine of the love of God, 
And, though full fed and fanned, it casts no shade, 
And dazzles not, o'erflowed with mightier light." 

There is no love so deep and wide as that 
which is kept for Jesus. It flows both fuller and 
farther when it flows only through Him. Then, 
too, it will be a power for Him. It will always 
be unconsciously working for Him. In drawing 
others to ourselves by it, we shall be necessarily 
drawing them nearer to the fountain of our love, 



OUR I.OVE) KEPT FOR JKSIIS. 153 

never drawing them away from it. It is the great 
magnet of His love which alone can draw any 
heart to Him; but when our own are thoroughly 
yielded to its mighty influence, they will be so 
magnetized that He will condescend to use them 
in this way. 

Is it not wonderful to think that the Lord Jesus 
will not only accept and keep, but actually use 
our love ? 

^^ Of Thine own have we given Thee/* for we 
love Him because He first loved us.'' 

Set apart to love Him, 

And His love to know 
Not to waste affection 
On a passing show ; 
Called to give Him life and heart, 

Called to pour the hidden treasure, 
That none other claims to measure. 
Into His beloved hand ! thrice blessed ** set apart! '* 



154 KKPT FOR THEJ MASTEJR'S US:^. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OUR SELVES KEPT FOR JESUS. 

** Keep my self, that I may be 
Ever, only, all for Thee." 

'^ POR Thee! '' That is the beginnmg and 
1 the end of the whole matter of consecra- 
tion. 
There was a prelude to its '^ endless song " — a 
prelude whose theme is woven into every follow- 
ing harmony in the new anthem of consecrated 
life : ^^ The Son of God who loved me, and gave 
Himself y^r me. ' ' Out of the realized '' for me/ ' 
grows the practical " for Thee ! '^ If the former 
is a living root, the latter will be its living fruit. 
^' For Thee P^ This makes the difference be- 
tween forced or formal, and therefore unreasona- 
ble service, and the ^treasonable service," which 
is the beginning of the perfect service where they 
see His face. This makes the difference between 
slave work and free work. For Thee, my Re- 
deemer ; for Thee, who hast spoken to my heart ; for 
Thee, who hast done for me — what? ' Let us each 



OUR se:i.ve:s ke:pt for jksus. 155 

pause, and fill up that blank with the great things 
the Lord hath done for us. For Thee, who art to 
me — what ? Fill that up too, before Him ! For 
Thee, my Saviour Jesus, my Lord and my God ! 
And what is to be for Him ? My self. We 
talk sometimes as if, whatever else could be sub- 
dued unto Him, self could never be. Did St. 
Paul forget to mention this important exception 
to the '' all things " in Phil iii. 21 ? David said : 
•^ Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is 
within me, bless His Holy Name." Did he, too, 
unaccountably forget to mention that he only 
meant all that was within him, except self? If 
not, then self must be among the ^^all things" 
which the Lord Jesus Christ is able to subdue 
unto Himself, and which are to *' bless His Holy 
Name." It is Self which, once His most treach- 
erous foe, is now, by full and glad surrender. His 
own soldier^ — coming over from the rebel camp 
into the royal army. It is not some one else, 
some temporarily possessing spirit, which says 
within us, '^Lord^ Thou knowest that I love 
Thee," but our true and very self, only changed 
and renewed by the power of the Holy Ghost. 
And when we do that we would not, we know 



156 KEPT I^OR THE MASTER'S USE. 

that ^'it is no more / that do it, but sin that 
dwelleth in me.'* Our true self is the new self, 
taken and won by the love of God, and kept by 
the power of God. 

Yes, ' ' kept I * ' There is the promise on which 
we ground our prayer j or, rather, one of the 
promises. For, search and look for your own 
strengthening and comfort, and you will find it 
repeated in every part of the Bible, from "' I am 
with thee and will keep thee,'' in Genesis, to ^^ I 
will also keep thee from the hour of temptation," 
in Revelation. 

And kepty2?r Him I Why should it be thought 
a thing incredible with you, when it is only the ful- 
filling of His own eternal purpose in creating us ? 
*' This people have I formed for Myself .^'^ Not 
ultimately only, but presently and continually; 
for He says, '^ Thou shalt abide for Me ;^^ and, 
'' He that remaineth, even he shall be for our 
God, ' ' Are you one of His people by faith in 
Jesus Christ ? Then see what you are to Him. 
You, personally and individually, are part of the 
Lord's portion (Deut. xxxii. 9), and of His 
inheritance (i Kings, viii. 53, and Eph i. 18). 
His portion and inheritance would not be com- 



OUR SKI.VES KEPT FOR JESUS. I57 

plete without you ; you are His peculiar treasure 
(Ex. xix. 5); '^ a special y^^o'^Iq^^ (how warm, 
and loving, and natural that expression is!) ^^unto 
Himself (Deut. vii. 6). Would you call it 
'^keeping/' if you had a '^special'' treasure, a 
darling little child, for instance, and let it run 
wild into all sorts of dangers all day long, some- 
times at your side, and sometimes out in the 
street, with only the intention of fetching it safe 
home at night ? If ye then, being evil, would 
know better and do better, than that, how much 
more shall our Lord's keeping be true, and ten- 
der, and continual, and effectual, when He de- 
clares us to be His peculiar treasure, purchased 
(see I Pet. ii. 9, margin) for Himself at such 
unknown cost ! 

He will keep what thus He sought, 
Safely guard the dearly bought ; 
Cherish that which He did choose, 
Always love and never lose. 

I know what some of us are thinking. '' Yes, 
I see it all plainly enough in theory, but in prac- 
tice I find I am not kept. Self goes over to the 
other camp again and again. It is not all for 
Jesus, though I have asked and wished for it to be 



158 k:^pt i^or the; master's use;. 

so.** Dear friends, the ^^all ''must be sealed 
with '' only.** Are you willing to be ^^ 07tly *' for 
Jesus? You have not given '^all** to Jesus 
while you are not quite ready to be ^^ only ** for 
Him. And it is no use to talk about '^ever*' 
while we have not settled the ^^only** and the 
^^all.*' You can not be '' for Him/* in the full 
and blessed sense, while you are partly ** for '* 
anything or any one else. For '' the Lord hath 
set apart him that is godly for Himself.** You 
see, the ^^ for Himself** hinges upon the ^^set 
apart.** There is no consecration without separa- 
tion. If you are mourning over want of realized 
consecration, will you look humbly and sincerely 
into this point? ^^A garden enclosed is my 
sister, my spouse,** saith the Heavenly Bride- 
groom. 

Set apart for Jesus ! 

Is not this enough? 
Though the desert prospect 
Open wild and rough ? 
Set apart for His delight, 

Chosen for His holy pleasure 
Sealed to be His special treasure ! 
Could we choose a nobler joy ? — and would we if 
we might ? "^ 

* Loyal Responses, p. ii. 



OUR SKI^VKS KKPT FOR JESUS. 1 59 

But yielding, by His grace to this blessed set- 
ting apart for Himself, '' The Lord shall establish 
thee an holy people unto Himself, as He hath 
sworn unto thee." Can there be a stronger 
promise ? Just obey and trust His word now, and 
yield yourselves now unto God, " that He may 
establish thee to-day for a people unto Himself." 
Commit the keeping of your souls to Him in 
well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator, being per- 
suaded that He is able to keep that which you 
commit to Him. 

Now, Lord, I give myself to Thee, 

I would be wholly Thine. 
As Thou hast given Thyself to me, 

And Thou art wholly mine ; 
O take me, seal me for Thine own, 
Thine altogether, Thine alone. 

Here comes in once more that immeasurably 
important subject of our influence. For it is not 
what we say or do, so much as what we are, that 
influences others. We have heard this, and very 
likely repeated it again and again, but have we 
seen it to be inevitably linked with the great 
question of this chapter ? I do not know any- 



l6o KEPT FOR THK MASTE^R'S VS^. 

thing which, thoughtfully considered, makes us 
realize more vividly the need and the importance 
of our whole selves being kept for Jesus. Any 
part not wholly committed^ and not wholly kept, 
must hinder and neutralize the real influence for 
Him of all the rest. If we ourselves are kept all 
for Jesus, then our influence will be all kept for 
Him too. If not, then, however much we may 
wish and talk and try, we cannot throw our full 
weight into the right scale. And just in so far as 
it is not in the one scale, it m.ust be in the other ; 
weighing against the little which we have tried to 
put in the right one, and making the short weight 
still shorter. 

So large a proportion of it is entirely invol- 
untary, while yet the responsibility of it is so 
enormous, that our helplessness comes out in ex- 
ceptionally strong relief, while our past debt in 
this matter is simply incalculable. Are we feeling 
this a little? getting just a glimpse, down the 
misty defiles of memory, of the neutral influence, 
the wasted influence, the mistaken influence, the 
actually wrong influence which has marked the 
inefl"aceable although untraceable course? And 
all the while we owed Him all that infl.uence ! It 



OUR SKI.VKS KEPT FOR JKSUS. l6l 

ought to Have been all for Him ! We have noth- 
ing to say. But what has our Lord to say ? *^ I 
forgave thee all that debt ! " 

Then, after that forgiveness which must come 
first, there conies a thought of great comfort in 
our freshly felt helplessness, rising out of the very 
thing that makes us realize this helplessness. Just 
because our influence is to such a great extent 
involuntary and unconscious, we may rest assured 
that if we ourselves are truly kept for Jesus, this 
will be, as a quite natural result, kept for Him 
also. It can not be otherwise, for as is the foun- 
tain, so will be the flow ; as the spring, so the 
action; as the impulse, so the communicated 
motion. Thus there may be, and in simple trust 
there will be, a quiet rest about it, a relief from 
all sense of strain and effort, a fulfilling of the 
words, '' For he that is entered into his rest, he 
also hath ceased from his own works, as God did 
from His.'' It will not be a matter of trymg to 
have good influence, but just of having it, as 
naturally and constantly as the magnetized bar. 

Another encouraging thought should follow. 
Of ourselves we may have but little weight, no 
particular talents or position or anything else to 
II 



1 62 KEPT If OR THE MASTER'S USE. 

put into the scale; but let us remember that again 
and again God has shown that the influence of a 
very average life, when once really consecrated to 
Him, may outweigh that of almost any number 
of merely professing Christians. Such lives are 
like Gideon's three hundred, carrying not even 
the ordinary weapons of war, but only trumpets 
and lamps and empty pitchers, by whom the 
Lord wrought great deliverance, while He did 
not use the others at all. For He hath chosen 
the weak things of the world to confound the 
things which are mighty. 

Should not all this be additional motive for 
desiring that our whole selves should be taken and 
kept? 

I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be 
forever. Therefore we may rejoicingly say ' ^ever ' ' 
as well as '^only'' and ^^all for Thee!" For 
the Lord is our Keeper, and He is the Almighty 
and the Everlasting God, with whom is no vari- 
ableness, neither shadow of turning. He will 
never change His mind about keeping us, and no 
man is able to pluck us out of His hand. Neither 
will Christ let us pluck ourselves out of His hand, 



OUR SEI.VES KEPT FOR JESUS. 163 

for He says, ^^Thou shalt abide for Me many 
days." And He that keepeth us will not slumber. 
Once having undertaken His vineyard, He will 
keep it night and day, till all the days and nights 
are over, and we know the full meaning of the sal- 
vation ready to be revealed in the last time, unto 
which we are kept by His power. 

And then, forever for Him ! passing from the 
gracious keeping by faith for this little while, to 
the glorious keeping in His presence for all 
eternity ! Forever fulfilling the object for which 
He formed us and chose us, we showing forth His 
praise, and He showing the exceeding riches of 
His grace in His kindness towards us in the ages 
to come ! He for us, and we for Him forever I 
Oh, how little we can grasp this ! Yet this is the 
fruition of being '^kept for Jesus ! " 

Set apart forever 

For Himself alone ! 
Now we see our calling 

Gloriously shown. 
Owning, with no secret dread, 

This our holy separation, 
Now the crown of consecration "^ 
Of the Lord our God shall rest upon our willing head. 

* Num. vi. 7. 



l64 KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CHRIST FOR US. 
*' So will I also be for Thee."— Hos. iii. 3 

THE typical promise, ^-Thou shalt abide for 
Me many days/' is indeed a marvel of love. 
For it is given to the most undeserving, de- 
scribed under the strongest possible figure of utter 
worthlessness and treacherousness, — the woman 
beloved, yet an adulteress. 

The depth of the abyss shows the length of the 
line that has fathomed it, yet only the length of 
the line reveals the real depth of the abyss. The 
sin shows the love, and the love reveals the sin. 
The Bible has few words more touching, though 
seldom quoted, than those just preceding this 
wonderful promise : '^ The love of the Lord toward 
the children of Israel, who look to other gods, 
and love flagons of wine.'' Put that into the 
personal application which no doubt underlies it, 



CHRIST FOR US. 165 

and say, *^ The love of the Lord toward me^ who 
have looked away from Him, with wandering, 
faithless eyes^ to other helps and hopes, and have 
loved earthly joys and sought earthly gratifica- 
tions, — the love of the Lord toward even me ! '' 
And then hear Him saying in the next verse, ^^So 
I bought her to me ; " stooping to do that in His 
mispeakable condescension of love, not with the 
typical silver and barley, but with the precious 
blood of Christ. Then, having thus loved us, 
and rescued us, and bought us with a price indeed. 
He says, still under the same figure, " Thou shalt 
abide for Me many days/' 

This is both a command and a pledge. But 
the very pledge implies our past unfaithfulness, and 
the proved need of even our own part being un- 
dertaken by the ever-patient Lord. He Himself 
has to guarantee our faithfulness, because there is 
no other hope of our continuing faithful. Well 
may such love win our full and glad surrender, 
and such a promise win our happy and confident 
trust ! 

But He says more. He says, '' So will I also 
be for thee ! ' ' And this seems an even greater 
marvel of love, as we observe how He meets every 



i66 k]e:pt for thk master's use:. 

detail of our consecration with this wonderful 
word.^ 

I. His Life " for thee ! " " The Good Shep- 
herd giveth His life for the sheep." Oh, won- 
derful gift! not promised, but given; not to 
friends, but to enemies. Given without condi- 
tion, without reserve, without return. Himself 
unknown and unloved. His gift unsought and 
unasked, He gave His life for thee ; a more than 
royal bounty — the greatest gift that Deity could 
devise. Oh, grandeur of love! ^^I lay down 
My life for the sheep ! ' ' And we for whom He 
gave it have held back, and hesitated to give our 
lives, not QYtn/or Him (He has not asked us to 
do that), but to Him ! But that is past, and He 
has tenderly pardoned the unloving, ungrateful 
reserve, and has graciously accepted the poor 
little fleeting breath and speck of dust which was 
all we had to offer. And now His precious death 
and His glorious life are all " for thee." 

■^ The remainder of this chapter is printed in a little penny 
book, entitled, / also foi^ Thee, by F. R. H., published by 
Caswell, Birmingham, and by Nisbet & Co. 



CHRIST FOR US. 1 67 

2. His Eternity *' for thee.'' All we can ask 
Him to take are days and moments — the little 
span given us as it is given, and of this only the 
present in deed and the future in will. As for 
the past, in so far as we did not give it to Him, 
it is too late ; we can never give it now ! But 
His past was given to us, though ours was not 
given to Him. Oh, what a tremendous debt 
does this show us 1 

Away back in the dim depths of past eternity, 
^^or ever the earth and the world were made," 
His divine existence in the bosom of His Father 
was all '' for thee," purposing and planning ^^ for 
thee," receiving and holding the promise of 
eternal life '' for thee." 

Then the thirty-three years among sinners on 
this sinful earth : do we think enough of the 
slowly -wearing days and nights, the heavy-footed 
hours, the never-hastening minutes, that went to 
make up those thirty- three years of trial and 
humiliation ? We all know how slowly time 
passes when suffering and sorrow are near, and 
there is no reason to suppose that our Master was 
exempted from this part of our infirmities. 

Then His present is ^^ for thee." Even now 



i68 KKP^ i^OR the: master's usk. 

He '' liveth to make intercession ; '* even now He 
'' thinkethupon me; '' even now He .'^knoweth," 
He '^careth/^ He ^^loveth." 

Then, only to think that His whole eternity 
will be '' for thee ! '^ Millions of ages of unfold- 
ings of all His love, and of ever-new declarings 
of His Father's name to His brethren. Think of 
it ! and can we ever hesitate to give all our poor 
little hours to His service ? 

3. His Hands ^^ for thee/' Literal hands, 
literally pierced, when the whole weight of His 
quivering frame hung from their torn muscles and 
bared nerves ; literally uplifted in parting bless- 
ing. Consecrated, priestly hands; ^* filled" 
hands (Ex. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9, etc., margin) — 
filled once with His great offering, and now with 
gifts and blessings '^for thee. Tender hands, 
touching and healing, lifting and leading with 
gentlest care. Strong hands, upholding and 
defending. Open hands, filling with good and sat- 
isfying desire (Ps. civ. 28, and cxlv. 16). Faithful 
hands, restraining and sustaining. '^His left 
hand is under my head and His right hand doth 
embrace Me/' 



CHRIST FOR US. 1 69 

4. His Feet *' for thee." They were weary 
very often, .they were wounded and bleeding 
once. They made clear footprints as He went 
about doing good, and as He went up to Jeru- 
salem to suffer; and these *^ blessed steps of His 
most holy life/' both as substitution and example, 
were '' for thee. ' * Our place of waiting and learn- 
ing, of resting and loving, is at His feet. And 
still those ^* blessed feet" are and shall be ^' for 
thee," until He comes again to receive us unto 
Himself, until and when the word is fulfilled, 
** They shall walk with Me in white." 

5. His Voice " iox thee." The ^' Voice of my 
beloved that knocketh, saying. Open to me, my 
sister, my love ; ' ' the Voice that His sheep *' hear " 
and ^^know," and that calls out the fervent re- 
sponse, '' Master, say on ! '^ This is not all. It 
was the literal voice of the Lord Jesus which 
uttered that one echoless cry of desolation on 
the Cross ''for thee," and it will be His own 
literal voice which will say, '' Come, ye blessed ! " 
to thee. And that same tender and ''glorious 
Voice" has literally sung and will sing "for 
thee." I think He consecrated sons: for us and 



I70 KKPT FOR THE) MASTE^R'S USK. 

made it a sweet and sacred thing forever, when 
He Himself ^^ sang an hymn/* the very last thing 
before He went forth to consecrate suffering for 
us. That was not -His last song. ^^The Lord 
thy God .... will joy over thee with singing.'' 
And the time is coming when He will not 
only sing " for thee " or " over thee," but with 
thee. He says He will ! ^^ In the midst of the 
church will I sing praise unto Thee. ' ' Now what 
a magnificent glimpse of joy this is! ^^ Jesus 
Himself leading the praises of His brethren/' * 
and we ourselves singing, not merely in such a 
chorus, but with such a leader ! If '^ singing for 
Jesus " is such delight here, what will this '' sing- 
ing with Jesus " be ? Surely song may well be a 
holy thing to us henceforth. 

6. His Lips " for thee." Perhaps there is no 
part of our consecration which it is so difficult 
practically to realize, and in which it is therefore 
so needful to recollect — '' I also for thee." It is 
often helpful to read straight through one or 
more of the Gospels with a special thought on 

^ See A. Newton on the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. ii., 
ver. 12. 



CHRIST FOR US. 171 

our mind, and see how much bears upon it. 
When we read one through with this thought, — 
'' His lips for me 1 " — wondering, verse by verse, 
at the grace which was poured into them, and the 
gracious words which fell from them, wondering 
more and more at the cumulative force and infi- 
nite wealth of tenderness and power and wisdom 
and love flowing from them, we cannot but de- 
sire that our lips and all the fruit of them should 
be wholly for Him. ^^ For thee" they were 
opened in blessing ; ^^ for thee ^ ' they were closed 
when He w^as led as a lamb to the slaughter. And 
whether teaching, warning, counsel, comfort, or 
encouragement, commandments in whose keeping 
there is a great reward, or promises which exceed 
all we ask or think — all the precious fruit of His 
lips is ^^ for thee," really and truly 77ieant ^*for 
thee." 

7. His Wealth " for thee." " Though He was 
rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye 
through His poverty might be made rich." Yes, 
^'through his poverty" the unsearchable riches 
of Christ are *^ for thee." Sevenfold riches are 
mentioned, and these are no unminted treasure 
or sealed reserve, but all ready coined for our use. 



172 KEPT I^OR the; master's USE). 

and stamped with His own image and superscrip- 
tion, and poured freely into the hand of faith. 
The mere list is wonderful. ' ' Riches of good- 
ness/' '' riches of forbearance and long-suffer- 
ing/' ''riches both of wisdom and knowledge/' 
' ' riches of mercy, " ' ' exceeding riches of grace, 
and ' ' riches of glory. ' ' And His own Word says, 
'* All are yours ! " Glance on in faith, and think 
of eternity flowing on and on beyond the mightiest 
sweep of imagination, and realize that all " His 
riches in glory," and " the riches of His glory " 
are and shall be '' for thee ! " In view of this, 
shall we care to reserve anything that rust doth 
corrupt for ourselves ? 

8. His "treasures of wisdom and knowledge '' 
for thee. First, used for our behalf and benefit. 
Why did He expend such immeasurable might of 
mind upon a world which is to be burnt up, but 
that He would fit it perfectly to be, not the 
home, but the school of His children ? The in- 
finity of His skill is such that the most powerful 
intellects find a lifetime too short to penetrate a 
little way into a few secrets of some one small 
department of His working. If we turn to Provi- 



CHRIST FOR US. 173 

dence, it is quite enough to take only one's own 
life, and look at it microscopically and telescopi- 
cally, and marvel at the treasures of wisdom lav- 
ished upon its details, ordering and shaping and 
fitting the tiny confused bits into the true mosaic 
which He means it to be. Many a little thing in 
our lives reveals the same Mind which, according 
to a well known and very beautiful illustration, 
adjusted a perfect proportion in the delicate 
hinges of the snowdrop and the droop of its bell, 
with the mass of the globe and the force of gravi- 
tation. How kind we think it if a very talented 
friend spends a little of his thought and power of 
mind in teaching us or planning for us ! Have 
we been grateful for the infinite thought and wis- 
dom which our Lord has expended upon us and 
our creation, preservation and redemption ? 

Secondly, to be shared with us. He says, *^ All 
that I have is thine." He holds nothing back, 
reserves nothing from His dear children, and 
what we cannot receive now He is keeping for us. 
He gives us '^ hidden riches of secret places" 
now, but by and by He will give us more, and 
the glorified intellect will be filled continually 
out of His treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 



174 KEPT I^OR THE MASTER'S USE. 

But the sanctified intellect will be, must be, used 
for Him, and only for Him, now ! 

9. His Will '' for thee/' Think first of the 
infinite might of that will ; the first great law and 
the first great force of the universe, from which 
alone every other law and every other force has 
sprung, and to which all are subordinate. ^^He 
worketh all things after the counsel of His own 
will." " He doeth according to His will in 
the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants 
of the earth.'' Then think of the infinite mys- 
teries of that will. For ages and generations the 
hosts of heaven have wonderi^ngly watched its 
vouchsafed un veilings and its sublime develop- 
ments, and still they are waiting, watching, and 
wondering. 

Creation and Providence are but the whisper 
of its power, but Redemption is its music, and 
praise is the echo which shall yet fill His temple. 
The whisper and the music, yes, and ' * the thunder 
of His power," are all '' for thee." For what is 
^' the good pleasure of His will?" (Eph. i. 5). 
Oh, what a grand hst of blessings purposed, pro- 
vided, purchased, and possessed, all flowing to us 



CHRIST FOR US. 175 

out of it ! And nothing but blessings, nothing 
but privileges, which we never should have im- 
agined, and which, even when revealed, we are 
^^ slow of heart to believe;" nothing but what 
should even now fill us '' with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory! " 

Think of this will as always and altogether on 
our side — always working for us, and in us, and 
with us, if we will only let it ; think of it as always 
and only synonymous with infinitely wise and 
almighty love ; think of it as undertaking all for 
us, from the great work of our eternal salvation 
down to the momentary details of guidance and 
supply, and do we not feel utter shame and self- 
abhorrence at ever having hesitated for an instant 
to give up our tiny, feeble, blind will to be — not 
crushed, not even bent, but blent with His glorious 
and perfect Will ? 

lo. His Heart ^^for thee." * ^ Behold . . . . 
He is mighty .... in heart," said Job (Job 
xxxvi. 5, margin). And this mighty and tender 
heart is '^ for thee ! " If He had only stretched 
forth His hand to save us from bare destruction, 
and said, *^ My hand for thee!" how could we 



176 KEiPT FOR THE master's USE. 

have praised Him enough ? But what shall we 
say of the unspeakably marvellous condescension 
which says, ^^Thou hast ravished (margin, taken 
a7iuay) my heart, my sister, my spouse ! ' ' The 
very fountain of His divine life, and light, and 
love, the very centre of His being, is given to His 
beloved ones, who are not only ^' set as a seal 
upon His heart,'' but taken into His heart, so that 
our life is hid there, and we dwell there in the 
very centre of all safety, and power, and love, and 
glory. What will be the revelation of '' that 
day," when the Lord Jesus promises, ^^ Ye shall 
know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me ? " 
For He implies that we do not yet know it, and 
that our present knowledge of this dwelling in 
Him is not knowledge at all compared with what 
He is going to show us about it. 

Now shall we, can we, reserve any corner of 
our hearts from Him ? 

II. His Love '' for thee." Not a passive, pos- 
sible love, but outflowing, yes outpouring of the 
real, glowing, personal love of His mighty and 
tender heart. Love, not as an attribute, a quality, 
a latent force, but an acting, moving, reaching, 



CHRIST FOR US. 1 77 

touching and grasping power. Love, not a cold, 
beautiful, far-off star, but a sunshine that comes 
and enfolds us, making us warm and glad, and 
strong, and bright, and fruitful. 

His love 1 What manner of love is it? What 
should be quoted to prove or describe it ? First, 
the whole Bible with its mysteries and marvels of 
redemption, then the whole book of Providence 
and the whole volume of creation. Then add 
to these the unknown records of eternity past and 
the unknown glories of eternity to come, and then 
let the immeasurable quotation be sung by " angels 
and archangels and all the company of heaven," 
with all the harps of God, and still that love will 
be untold, still it will be ^Hhe love of Christ 
that passeth knowledge." But it is ^^ for thee." 

12. Himself "iox thee." ^^ Christ also hath 
loved us, and given Himself for us" ''The 
Son of God . . . loved me and gave Himself 
for me." Yes, Himself! What is the Bride's 
true and central treasure? What calls forth 
the deepest, brightest, sweetest thrill of love 
and praise? Not the Bridegroom's priceless 
gifts, not the robe of His resplendent righteous- 



178 KKPX FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 

ness, not the dowry of unsearchable riches, not 
the magnificence of the palace home to which 
He is bringing her, not the glory which she 
shall share with Him, but Himself ! Jesus 
Christ, ^^who His own self bare our sins in 
His own body on the tree ; " " this same Jesus," 
'•whom having not seen, ye love; " the Son of 
God, and the Man of Sorrows; my Saviour, 
my Friend, my Master, my King, my Priest, my 
Lord and my God. He says, ^'/also for thee ! " 
What an ' '// ' ' What power and sweetness we 
feel in it, so different from any human ^'/," for 
all His Godhead and all His manhood are con- 
centrated in it, and all '^ for thee ! " 

And not only *'all," but "ever'' for thee. His 
unchangeableness is the seal upon every attribute ; 
He will be " this same Jesus " forever. How can 
mortal mind estimate this enormous promise? 
How can mortal heart conceive what is enfolded 
in these words, " I also for thee ? " 

One glimpse of its fulness and glory, and we 
feel that henceforth it must be, shall be, and by 
His grace will be our true-hearted, whole-hearted 

cry — 

Take myself, and I will be 
Ever, ONLY, ALL for Thee ! 



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